Kyle Dubas was initially non-committal about Babcock’s future in his end-of-year press conference, mentioning that the entire organization was under evaluation following the first-round exit at the hands of Boston.
Johnston’s intel is that the Leafs front office evaluated the team’s performance in the series and believed the group showed enough progress over the seven games to continue on with Babcock at the helm to start 2019-20.
Looking big picture, as the Leafs reflect back, this is probably a coaching change they would’ve preferred to make last summer knowing what they know now rather than 23 games into the season.