Compete Level

In his first NHL training camp, Babcock sidelined three well-liked veterans: Jason York, Denny Lambert and German Titov. Lambert and York said they arrived at the Ducks training camp to find their names had been removed from their stalls and gear cleared out. Babcock told them they could not be around the team at all, they said. The players practiced alone on empty ice in the afternoon.

At the time, Lambert’s 2-year-old son was in the hospital with a broken femur; he said he wouldn’t have left his family in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, if the Ducks had told him he was unwanted. Lambert said he asked Babcock why he’d been removed. Was it his performance on the ice? An issue in the locker room? Babcock told Lambert there was nothing he could do to change his mind.

“There was no respect at all,” Lambert said. “I would never treat anyone like that.”

“I’m looking on the back end, as well, for something,” he added.