Craig Berube is losing his patience with trying to get Maple Leafs’ first line going

The Toronto Maple Leafs have started the season slowly, which seems to be a trend for the month of October. Seven games into the season they’re 3-3-1, already complete with a call-out from goaltender Anthony Stolarz, and now head coach Craig Berube is starting to voice his frustration.

One of the biggest questions entering the season was who was going to replace Mitch Marner on the top line with Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies. So far, Matias Maccelli, Easton Cowan, and Max Domi have auditioned for the role. Cowan’s time on the line saw them produce their best results, but it hasn’t been enough to cement himself as the permanent top-line winger. Speaking with reporters following the Maple Leafs’ loss to the New Jersey Devils, Berube said that his patience is starting to wear thin with experimenting on the top line.

“I think early on in the season, I thought, you know, they were getting their opportunities and looking pretty good,” Berube said. “Now, it’s like, it’s obviously not good enough. I don’t feel like they have any sustained pressure in the offensive zone at all. It’s one and done, then they’re out.”

When reminded of the start of the season, when Berube said that it might take a while to figure out the permanent fit on the top line, he said that it’s quickly approaching too long to figure it out.

“It could be, but I’m getting tired of it to be honest with you.”

The Leafs looked good in the first period against New Jersey, but three goals against in the first five minutes of the period is a great way to gift wrap the opposing team all of the momentum. They looked like they were a step behind the Devils from that point on, but Berube pushed back on the notion that the team’s overall speed is an issue.

“I don’t think speed is an issue on our team. I think when we play the right way and we play direct, we look fast,” Berube said. “But when we want to not play that way, we look slow. I think that’s really what it boils down to. Is there teams that have more speed than our team? Yeah, there is. But at the same time, that’s why we talk about playing predictable and direct, so you can look fast. And right now, we’re not consistently doing that enough.”

Ultimately, Berube believes that the results will come when everybody is bought into the same game plan.

“There are a lot of guys that played a good hockey game tonight, I thought,” Berube continued. “They did a lot of good things. But we don’t have enough of them. And if we don’t have everybody going, on the same page and doing the right things, that’s what we’re going to look like.”

The Maple Leafs will be back in action on Friday night as they open a home-and-home with the Buffalo Sabres, and Berube will no doubt be pushing his team to make the best of it and recoup some points that they missed in the first few games.