WASHINGTON — “You gotta play!”
Craig Berube’s bark cut through an otherwise quiet Capital One Arena on Friday afternoon. The Toronto Maple Leafs were in the middle of a practice following maybe their ugliest defeat of the season, a 4-0 drubbing at the hands of the Washington Capitals, and the coach repeatedly made one thing clear.
If this Leafs season is to be saved, a lot needs to improve. It starts with the players.
“The whole approach with me today with our group was we can’t go out and play with heaviness and fear of mistakes, too tentative. We’ve got to be on our toes more,” Berube said.
The Leafs coach feels his team is letting the opposition dictate play too often. He did not address the team after Thursday’s loss, instead choosing to communicate during a meeting before Friday’s practice. The Leafs are 13th in the Eastern Conference in points percentage and are in grave danger of missing the postseason for the first time since 2016.
“We’re down, right?” Berube said of his team. “They’re not where they want to be and neither are we as coaches. We’re all in it together. Guys, we’re in the NHL, let’s have some fun. I get it. But we’re still OK. We’ve got to string some wins together and put ourselves in a better spot. But you love this game.”
If a tense practice on Friday, coupled with Thursday’s loss, was any indication, it’s starting to feel as if Berube’s message has not been heard.
“All that matters is playing for each other,” Berube said of what he told his team before practice.
Berube is sticking with the same forward lines, despite no signs of life from his stars against the Capitals. The only change he’s making is on defence, with Philippe Myers coming in for Henry Thrun.
The atmosphere around Friday’s practice felt tight, with no players speaking up as they often do. Faces were long and heavy. No special teams work was done. Instead, drills focused on puck pressure, speed and swift puck movement.
“I want pressure on that puck,” Berube shouted during practice, multiple times.
Berube had multiple lengthy, animated conversations with John Tavares on the ice, both before and after practice. Then, during a drill focused on pressuring opposition players in the neutral zone, Berube and William Nylander engaged in a lengthy back-and-forth that appeared contentious.
This is not the first sign of tension between Berube and his team. Those signs have come in waves.
The Leafs lost seven of eight games in mid-November, and questions about Berube’s future with the team started creeping up. Berube’s own dissatisfaction with his team was evident.
There was an expletive-laced practice on Nov. 17, in which he screamed at multiple players.
“Until we decide to dig in and play the right way for 60 minutes on a consistent basis, it’s going to be hard to pull yourself out of anything,” he said after an ugly 5-2 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Nov. 22.
The Leafs then won five of seven games, including against division rivals and the Carolina Hurricanes, the best team in the Eastern Conference. The noise around Berube grew quiet. The Leafs were scoring, stopping the puck and defending the way their coach wanted them to. Maybe, just maybe, they were out of the woods and a playoff spot would be possible.
Turns out the map they were using to get out of the woods was mislabeled.
The Leafs have since lost three of four games, their lone win a last-gasp comeback over the lowly Chicago Blackhawks after one of their most dreadful first periods of the season. Thursday’s loss to the Capitals was the low point of the season: 0-for-5 on the power play, shut out for the first time all season and no urgency throughout.
“They scored a couple goals in the first period that are defendable. It’s not like (the Capitals) did anything spectacular. In my opinion, they were easily defendable goals,” Berube said Friday.
The Leafs’ significant struggles of late and Berube’s evident frustration suggest they won’t easily emerge from this most recent slump.
Ahead of Friday’s practice, it was worth wondering if Berube was going to walk back his most incendiary comment as Leafs coach to date.
Where was the Leafs’ passion and urgency, considering where they fall in the standings?
“Ask those guys, not me,” Berube said of his players.
The damning comment suggests Berube’s frustration with his players is boiling over. That much was evident during Friday’s practice.
The 25-minute practice before the team flew to Nashville ended up being as quiet a session as the Leafs have had all season.
“We’re trying to find our rhythm again, our identity. It’s frustrating because I feel like we’ve had this kind of talk a few times,” Matthew Knies told The Athletic after Friday’s practice.
Around the team, the malaise evident during the Capitals game certainly feels real. After the loss, Nylander was asked why it’s been difficult for the Leafs to play consistently and build upon wins this season.
He exhaled heavily.
“I don’t know, it’s a tough question,” a sombre-sounding Nylander answered, before his scrum abruptly ended.
Full credit to Nylander for stepping in front of the cameras and microphones after a dispiriting loss amid a tough stretch, but it should not be a tough question to answer.
The divide between Nylander and Berube seems wide from the outside, and it speaks to the entire team’s swift turn downward this season.
Nylander can claim, as he has to The Athletic’s Jonas Siegel, that the two have a “great” relationship and that Berube is “very easy to talk to.” However, what he has displayed on the ice as of late suggests otherwise. Nylander isn’t always at his most engaged; the player who averaged more than a point per game last season under Berube now has points in just two of his last eight games.
If the rift between a star player under contract until the next decade and the coach is genuine, something will have to give.
That’s just one of the many causes for concern for Berube right now. He’s clearly going to keep pushing his team, as he did on Friday. It remains to be seen whether they respond.