Craig Berube critical of Maple Leafs’ puck play, lack of quickness vs. Red Wings

Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube thought his team started well but got worse as Thursday’s game wore on against the Detroit Red Wings. The team was outshot 42-19 and got into a lot of penalty trouble with a total of six infractions on the night. Anthony Stolarz was able to keep the Leafs ahead for the better part of two periods, but things unravelled in the third period when the Red Wings scored three unanswered goals to grab control of the game.

Berube felt that his overall assessment of the night was mixed: there were some good, some bad, and some ugly moments.

“ The first period was good. I thought we had good energy, played a pretty good game, pretty good period,” Berube said to reporters after the game. “ We got in penalty trouble in the second. I think we were short till the 11-minute mark, something like that. I think that took a lot out of the guys. I thought they  responded though, I thought we were okay. But for me, overall, the third period was no good. But it’s all puck play for me and quickness. We were looked slow in the third, and our puck play was not very good.”

As far as the positives were concerned, Berube felt Stolarz was ‘pretty darn good” as he looked like he was in mid-season form already. But he also felt the team overall wasn’t strong on pucks and was not moving their feet quickly enough to correct mistakes.

He won’t complain about the penalty killing units getting reps before the start of the regular season, but Berube also felt that some of the penalties committed were avoidable.

“ We got a high stick and penalty, right? Four minutes. We took two hooking penalties,” he said. “ Two penalties I thought we had to take cause we gave up some odd man rushes in through the neutral zone, one in on a [Matthew] Knies back check. They’re careless, a little bit careless with the penalties. But you put yourself in bad situations sometimes, you’re gonna take penalties.”

Berube did acknowledge that it is still a work in progress as far as line chemistry is concerned, and that may have contributed to the sluggish play from his team. At the same time, he knows that all three players on each line need to be on the same page constantly to ensure that they have success and he didn’t see enough of it collectively.

One person that Berube was hoping to get a proper assessment on was Easton Cowan, whom the coach praised for owning up to a turnover he committed that led to scoring chances for Detroit.

“ I think he didn’t really get an opportunity with all the penalties. I thought it took him out of the game,” he said. “ I tried to get him going in the third a little bit more with different lines, so I think it’s hard to evaluate that game.  But he was like the rest of us. I thought the third period turnovers, we didn’t make strong plays of the puck and they were quicker than us in the third.”