Craig Berube is close to 23 years removed from his 17-season NHL career. But the Toronto Maple Leafs head coach showed up to the team’s Friday morning skate with a shiner that he just as well could have brandished while racking up the seventh-most penalty minutes in league history during his days as a left winger.<\/p>\n
In Berube’s corresponding media availability ahead of a home game against the Vegas Golden Knights, he was asked about his black eye, which turned out to be just one of the wounds he sustained in a gym accident.<\/p>\n
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[Get more Maple Leafs news: Toronto team feed<\/a>]<\/p>\n “Yeah, I’ll address it because you’re going to see it tonight,” Berube said in his news conference, via Sportsnet<\/a>. “I had an accident in the gym yesterday.”<\/p>\n Berube proceeded to soften the blow of his tale with some humor.<\/p>\n “The other guy looks way worse,” the 60-year-old quipped, drawing laughter from reporters. “There was three of them.”<\/p>\n Then he snapped back to a more serious tone.<\/p>\n “No, it was just a…” Berube started before lifting his Leafs cap to show a stitched-up gash on his dome that trailed down onto his forehead.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n “You know, it’s tough, man. … It was stupid. It was just a bad accident, and it’s on me. My fault. Yeah, I’m fine.”<\/p>\n Berube was later asked what his players’ reactions were to seeing his injuries.<\/p>\n “Oh they laughed. They loved it,” Berube said.<\/p>\n He added, before chuckling himself: “Especially when I told ’em what happened.”<\/p>\n Berube is keeping the details in-house, though.<\/p>\n “I’m not going to talk about it,” he said. “Nobody needs to know. It’s all good.”<\/p>\n Naturally, a follow-up question seeking clarification arrived. A reporter inquired if Berube was lifting weights when the incident occurred.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n “Yeah, something like that,” Berube said with a smile.<\/p>\n He’ll still be behind the bench for the Leafs (24-17-9) on Friday night against the Golden Knights (24-13-12). The game will be Mitch Marner’s first back in Toronto since heading to Vegas as part of a sign-and-trade deal before free agency this past offseason<\/a>. The forward, whom the Leafs selected No. 4 overall in the 2015 entry draft, spent nine seasons in Toronto. He starred for the franchise, however, the contentious ending to his near-decade stay could incite boos in Scotiabank Arena.<\/p>\n The Leafs are three points back of the final Eastern Conference wild-card spot at the moment.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n As for Berube, the second-year Leafs coach isn’t the only NHLer to experience an off-ice injury this season.<\/p>\n Florida Panthers center Eetu Luostarinen was sidelined with burns that he sustained during a barbecuing accident<\/a>. And New Jersey Devils center Jack Hughes hurt his finger in what was reported as a “freak accident”<\/a> during a team dinner. Hughes needed surgery as a result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Craig Berube is close to 23 years removed from his 17-season NHL career. But the Toronto Maple Leafs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[825,249,57,149,5,1272,533,151,1757,31,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-424960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-craig-berube","9":"tag-eetu-luostarinen","10":"tag-florida-panthers","11":"tag-golden-knights","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-jack-hughes","14":"tag-mitch-marner","15":"tag-new-jersey-devils","16":"tag-sportsnet","17":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs","18":"tag-vegas-golden-knights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115948373590422525","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}