The Toronto Maple Leafs are set to take on the St. Louis Blues in what will be Craig Berube’s first time facing the team he coached to a Stanley Cup in 2019. Sure, there’s been a good amount of roster turnover since, but between Colton Parayko, Brayden Schenn, and Jordan Binnington, to name a few, there are enough familiar faces on the other side to mark this game on the calendar. But to Berube, it’s just another game for the team he currently coaches.
“I mean, obviously, there’s emotions, but once the puck drops, it’s over,” Berube told reporters after the Maple Leafs’ morning skate. “We’re just playing. We need a good response here tonight from our team.”
The Maple Leafs are coming off an ugly 6-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday night in what was easily their worst effort of the season. It doesn’t help that it came against a team that likely won’t be in the playoff picture, adding more fuel to the fire that is the narrative about not being able to get crucial points against teams below them in the standings.
“For me, we were just loose in the game,” Berube said about Tuesday’s loss when asked about his team’s effort. “They were ready, we knew they were going to be ready, they’ve got some real good players on that team, and we let them skate through us all night. You gotta check, and we didn’t check. That’s where it ends for me.”
Berube was asked later on about what it was like to catch up with some of the players he used to coach, but he brushed it off and reiterated his desire to win the game.
“I’ve been there a long time, worked with a people for a long time, and I have a lot of real good feelings for these people, but in the end, we need two points. I can’t stress that enough. It’s just about us.”
Berube might not be thinking about getting the win for himself, but his players are determined to respond after such a poor showing against the Blue Jackets,
“It means a lot to him,” Matthew Knies told reporters. “I don’t think he’s going to say much about it, but to us in this locker room, we obviously want to get the win for him, and we’re trying to dominate and be the team we know we can be.”
The Maple Leafs may only be 18th in the league when it comes to hits as a team, but there’s a lot more than throwing body checks to the idea of playing good physical hockey. Their forechecking has taken a big step forward, and there have been noticeable improvements in the north-south play that was advertised. His players are starting to feel the effects, too.
“The style of play,” Ryan Reaves said when asked what his favourite part about playing for Berube is. “It’s a little more hard-nosed, I think that’s the main thing. I think we play a little harder here right now down the lineup.”
The Maple Leafs’ shift back to a hard-nosed, defensive-minded coach after the Sheldon Keefe era is not one that’s going to come without growing pains and the occasional speed bump, but as his former players in St. Louis have since revealed, the common denominator with Berube teams has been a total team buy-in mentality. And he has a Stanley Cup to show for it. When asked where his Cup ring was, he jokingly speculated that his wife may have done something with it.
“It’s not on display or anything. My wife probably got it. Maybe she sold it, I don’t know,” he said, getting a laugh from the scrum. “I haven’t seen it in a long time.”
Berube’s Leafs are 4-3-0 on the season, but their play has been better than their record has shown. They’ve played well in every game so far except for Tuesday’s stinker against Columbus, and with another opportunity to come out victorious in a revenge game (having already defeated Keefe’s New Jersey Devils and Kyle Dubas’ Pittsburgh Penguins), the Maple Leafs are looking to turn the corner quickly and make the best of a clean slate.
