The north-south Maple Leafs have arrived!
All in all, Craig Berube’s squad put forth a very strong effort in Wednesday night’s 6-2 beatdown of the Los Angeles Kings.
That said, there’s certainly plenty to clean up moving forward.
With that in mind, we kicked off the Thursday edition of Leafs Morning Take by discussing accountability. In case you missed it, after the Kings scored to make it 5-2 with 11 minutes left in the third period, Berube called a timeout and absolutely tore a strip off the team. This is a process. The result was nice, but undoubtedly, the Leafs took their foot off the gas in the third period and their play dipped considerably. That’s unacceptable, and I love that Berube let them know.
Brought to you by Prime Video, we offered up a full recap of the home ice victory. Firstly, it was good to see Auston Matthews get on the board. Additionally, Bobby McMann added two more goals. Funny enough, he went from being a health bomb on opening night to a lineup mainstay. Message received. Also, the power play finally got cooking going 2-for-4. Furthermore, we also broke down Timothy Liljegren’s season debut as well as the decision to scratch Max Pacioretty.
Meantime, courtesy Charm Diamond Centres, ‘Iron’ Mike Keenan dropped by the show. In addition to discussing his newly released memoir (Iron Mike: My Life Behind The Bench), we spent a lot of time talking about leadership. Naturally, we talked some Auston Matthews. Also, Mike dished on two Leafs related personnel he coached: Craig Berube and Brendan Shanahan.
After that, we got to the Great Clips inbox question of the week. We were asked who we thought was Toronto’s biggest offseason pick-up thus far. Rosey rifled off 15 names, I went with Chris Tanev.
Make sure to join us for the Friday edition of Leafs Morning Take (11 AM ET). We’ll discuss the latest from practice, plus look ahead to Saturday night’s measuring stick tilt at home against the New York Rangers. Also, Craig Simpson from Sportsnet/Hockey Night In Canada will drop by for a chat.
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