Toronto Maple Leafs center John Tavares is congratulates by head coach Craig Berube after scoring a goal against the San Jose Sharks during the third period in San Jose, Calif., on March 27.Tony Avelar/The Associated Press
In his first trip to the playoffs as a player, Craig Berube was part of a Philadelphia Flyers squad that fell one win short of a Stanley Cup. In his second trip to the playoffs as a head coach, he went one better, scaling the top of the NHL mountain.
So forgive him if he has little patience for the narrative around this current, star-laden nucleus of Toronto Maple Leafs players being unable to get it done this time of year, despite its record of just one win in its last nine playoff series.
“All I hear around here is core, core, core. The Core Four,” the Leafs coach said Wednesday, referring to Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares. “But it’s on everybody, the team. We’re a team, and it’s on the whole team, not just four guys.”
As Berube pointed out Wednesday, before the Leafs left for Ottawa for Thursday’s Game 6, that whole team remains just one win away from advancing, still up 3-2 in the first-round series against the Senators despite dropping the past two contests.
And all the talk surrounding the ghosts of playoffs past, whether it’s three years ago and the squandering of a 3-1 series lead against the Montreal Canadiens, or the frittering of 3-2 series leads against the likes of Boston and Tampa Bay, are exactly that – in the past.
“It gets to the point in the playoffs where there’s more noise and a lot of past stuff that I hear around here, and that’s all fine,” Berube said. “That’s part of it all. The only pressure they have is their own teammates, in my opinion.”
The level – and source – of pressure that the Maple Leafs are under can certainly be debated, but what isn’t in dispute is Tuesday’s 4-0 home loss to the Senators. That defeat dropped the Leafs to 1-13 in games where they have a chance to eliminate their opponent since the start of the 2017 playoffs.
Equally incontrovertible is the record of the Core Four in those games. While Tavares can be excused to a certain extent, scoring four goals despite missing almost all of the Montreal series through injury, the other three have accounted for just six goals combined in those 14 games.
But as Morgan Rielly said Wednesday, he and his teammates have learned from those previous faux pas.
“We’ve been in this spot before,” he said, “and I think there’s comfort in that.”
At this point in time, that may feel like cold comfort to most of Leafs Nation, but given some of the lacklustre aspects of Toronto’s play on Tuesday, Rielly was spoilt for choice when he was asked to identify parts of his team’s game that could use improvement.
“Lots of areas,” he said. “Breakouts, forecheck, the whole thing, just about managing the game. I always say at the tip of the spear, it’s execution, and then from there it goes into being competitive, structure and whatnot. But I think it’s just about executing.”
While Berube said his message to his stars, such as Matthews and Marner, was simply to “stay with it,” he also acknowledged that his five-forward first power-play unit – which scored five goals in the first three games – has struggled to do much of anything the last two, save for giving up two shorthanded goals. He’s also looking to find some chemistry at left wing on the second line, where Pontus Holmberg, Max Domi and others have all rotated through at points during this series.
“I don’t want to change too much,” Berube said. “I think there’s a lot of good but at the same time, we have to find ways to put the puck in the net a little bit more.”
One trio that he has been overwhelmingly happy with is his fourth line, which sees trade-deadline acquisition Scott Laughton centring Steven Lorentz and Calle Jarnkrok. On a hit-shy team like the Leafs – their 29.98 hits per 60 minutes was last in the playoffs before Wednesday’s games, and almost 10 behind the Ottawa Senators – that line has contributed more than 22 per cent of the team’s checking.
“I think being good on the forecheck, making it hard for them,” said Laughton when asked about his line’s strengths. “They got some good defencemen back there that can move, so try and be physical on them and make it hard for them throughout the night.”
That very much aligns with how Berube wants his teams to play at this time of year, and you almost get the impression that if he could infuse some of that energy and physicality into his top lines, he would do so in a heartbeat.
“You have to have that work mentality and that checking mentality,” Berube said. “Checking is not just playing defence. Checking is offence. You check for your chances. You get on the inside, you work and hound, it creates turnovers from the other team. It creates chaos for the other team. We can do a better job of that as a team.”
The Leafs will get another chance to put up or shut up on Thursday night in the nation’s capital. Failure to do so and whatever their head coach says, the pressure won’t simply be coming from inside the team’s dressing room.