How Long Will the Glass Stay Half-Full for Mike Babcock and the Maple Leafs?

Right now for Mike Babcock in Toronto, the sun is still shining, the birds (Blue Jays especially) are still chirping and the honeymoon phase with Maple Leafs fans still seems lovey-dovey.

On one hand, nothing has changed in Toronto. The Leafs' glory days remain mired in black-and-white Kodachrome, when men carried silver cigarette cases and wore coats, ties and Fedoras to games at Maple Leaf Gardens. Your Leafs of 2015-16 are off to a 1-3-1 start, with 12 goals for and 17 against, including a humiliating loss against Babcock's former employer, the Detroit Red Wings.

To those who might have expected more from a coach currently paid more than twice that of any other NHL coach, who might have hoped he'd turn water into wine already, well, sorry; Babcock does not seem to be a miracle worker, even at $6.25 million a year.

To listen to the majority of fans and media in Toronto, however, you'd think the record was the opposite. The pews in the "Church of Babcock" are still full, with rapt listeners thrilling to words like "structure" and "puck management" and the promise of better days.

Venturing into the realm of Twitter-land the last couple of days, instead of the same-as-it-ever-was lament I expected from a sampling of Leafs fans, all I got was victory-is-at-hand sentiment.

How long will this last, though? Isn't this still the same, demanding hockey city where tickets cost a fortune? Isn't this the same organization that handed Randy Carlyle his walking papers, despite winning percentages of .563, .512 and .594 his final three seasons?

Weren't things technically improving in Carlyle's tenure, after inheriting a mess from Ron Wilson in 2012? Yet, team president Brendan Shanahan broomed just about everybody in the front office, importing Babcock and New Jersey Devils icon Lou Lamoriello to help take over.

Before the season, Babcock did an interview with Sports Illustrated's Michael Farber in which he said the following: "[We have to] be patient. Get good things going. Not deviate from the plan. Set ourselves up for a 10-year run. It’s probably going to take us three years to get that run set up.”

Three years? Three years, just to get it "set up"? Leafs ownership will have paid Babcock $18.75 million in salary by then. Three years is a long time in the modern sports world. Heck, Barry Melrose was fired only 16 games into his first year with the Tampa Bay Lightning because he hadn't turned the Bolts around fast enough.

Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press

Alain Vigneault was fired less than two years after taking the Vancouver Canucks to the seventh game of the Stanley Cup Final. Claude Julien won a Stanley Cup in Boston in 2011, won a Presidents' Trophy the next year and had to sweat out keeping his job this past summer after a 41-27-14 season. 

Have the brutal Darwinian laws of NHL coaching been given a holiday for Babcock in Toronto? How come he gets such a long runway, while everyone else has to win now or else?

It's sometimes portrayed as if Babcock is coaching an expansion team, with no talent to work with, but aren't the Leafs right up against the cap with their current payroll? At last check, the Leafs have seven players making $4 million or more, with two at $6 million or more.

"I thought Babcock-Shanahan did a great job preseason lowering expectations so people expected the worst , so that three years seemed OK," TSN analyst and former player Ray Ferraro told Bleacher Report.

The Toronto media is notoriously tough on Maple Leafs coaches, and many have been driven to distraction by it. Just watch this video clip of Ron Wilson jousting with reporters here for more or this one with Paul Maurice. He's not a coach, but Phil Kessel had had enough with the Toronto media by the time he left, as this video certainly attests.

Matt Kincaid/Getty Images

So far, though, the pit bulls of the Toronto media have been pussycats toward Babcock. Fair enough, it's early and the Maple Leafs have been competitive in all their games save the one in Detroit. At least one "Roman" on the Leafs roster knows things won't be rebuilt in a day and echoes many others in believing in "The Babcock Way."

“If you look at the games, we’re more structured, and we’re following the plan,” defenseman Roman Polak told Sportsnet's Chris Johnston. “You can see improvement from last year a lot.”

There is statistical evidence to back that up. Toronto's Corsi For percentage (60 minutes) is a very respectable 55.7 percent, ninth-best in the league. They're averaging 32.1 shots per game and allowing 28.2. Last year, the Leafs averaged 28.2 shots a game and surrendered 32.6. 

"They already look way more organized and work as a team instead of individuals," Ferraro said. "And unless they get Steven Stamkos to speed things up, the fans and media can be as impatient as they want." 

Babcock is a proven winner, with fewer than 95 points only once in any full season of his 12-year NHL career. But Randy Caryle was a proven winner when he came to Toronto too, having won a Stanley Cup in Anaheim in 2007 and several other good seasons. Only halfway through year three of his full-time tenure with the Leafs, he was fired for Peter Horachek, who didn't even get the chance to coach beyond his half-season.

Babcock has already seemingly succeeded in conditioning the Toronto fans and media that, while it might take three years to do it, the wait will be worth it. This might prove Babcock's greatest feat of all, turning Toronto into a patient city.

With a guaranteed $50 million contract spread out over eight years, Babcock can literally and figuratively afford to be patient. If history is any guide, however, the honeymoon period in Toronto might be shorter than he realizes.

Stats are courtesy of HockeyDB.com and Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com. Salary-cap and other salary-related information is courtesy of Spotrac.

Adrian Dater covers the NHL for Bleacher Report.