Maple Leafs’ first 10 games under Craig Berube show promise and room for improvement

Monday marked the first ten games of the Craig Berube era. In this small sample size, the Toronto Maple Leafs have maintained their status quo of lacklustre starts to the season. You have to return to the COVID-era North Division season in 2020-21 to have the Leafs picking up more than five wins in their first ten games. In short, this group hasn’t been coming out the gate strong, which has been one of the many things that haven’t changed under Berube.

There is certainly a narrative around the bump a team gets from a new coach, one that Berube rode pretty well during his first year in St. Louis. But even if the said bump was real, you could argue the narrative applies more to in-season coaching changes as that’s when you’ve seen the Berube or Kris Knoblauch Cup runs, and when the Leafs have had the full summer to communicate with Berube, go through a full training camp with him, and bring in seven or eight newcomers into the lineup, that narrative isn’t going to apply as much anyway. The sense of urgency of having to get better is reduced when the front office seems committed to running back the group that was part of what got the last coach fired.

There’s also something to be said about the expectations for Berube. If the assumption was that Berube was going to fix everything that wasn’t liked about Sheldon Keefe and what happened on his watch, that was certainly unrealistic and even if it is going to happen, to have it all fixed in the first ten games seems like the bar was set too high. There also needs to be some consideration for the fact that Berube’s results came with a team that was constructed very differently than the current Maple Leafs, and his best season required a goaltender with a .930 save percentage to get them there. The Leafs don’t have a Norris-calibre defenceman like prime Alex Pietrangelo (a new coach brings a firm reminder of what Morgan Rielly is and isn’t) and while Anthony Stolarz is doing a pretty good impression of 2018-19 Jordan Binnington in net, the rest of the team needs to catch up.

Establishing that it is unreasonable to fix everything all at once, ten games isn’t a lot of time, and coaching only matters so much and it is what the players do with that instruction that matters, it seems like it is time for an early review of what has gone right and what has gone wrong so far for Berube this season.

Gone Right: Anthony Stolarz

I don’t know how much of Stolarz can be credited to Craig Berube, but a lot of goaltending success relies on the team in front of them. Stolarz has looked good so to some extent the Leafs are doing what they need to do for Stolarz to be at his best. Some of that is going to fall on Berube and if you want to credit Binnington’s run for being part of what gave Berube his kickstart in St. Louis, having Stolarz do the same is encouraging.

The fact that Berube has gone to Stolarz often is both a tad out of necessity, due to Joseph Woll’s injury but has also been an opportunity to test Stolarz’s ability to handle a starter’s workload and he’s stepped up early. There’s also something to say for the fact that Berube was comfortable going with Dennis Hildeby when he needed to, that’s not something that was guaranteed to happen under Sheldon Keefe.

Gone Wrong: The Power Play

Game 10 finally brought about an honest-to-goodness shift in the personnel on the power play, but it is likely just the beginning of the work that needs to be done.

Standstill zone entries, excessive passing, and a top loaded first unit that doesn’t necessarily complement each other’s abilities the way they need to are some of the key issues. Marc Savard’s time in charge looks like a continuation of Guy Boucher’s struggle to make sense of the group he’s working with, thus far.

While Savard gets the bulk of the criticism here, the buck stops with Berube at the end of the day and if he needs to step in to fix things or take over the powerplay to right the ship, stepping up and putting some urgency on this issue seems necessary.

Gone Right: Steven Lorentz

It seems that every coach has a fourth liner who just somehow clicks for them and good or bad they’ll be in the lineup. Sheldon Keefe had David Kampf, it was surprising that Mike Babcock never brought in Luke Glendening from his Detroit days, and the Brad May/Jay McClement/Mike Brown types of the long ago certainly pile up too.

Much like the early versions of Glendening/McClement/Kampf, things are going very right for Steven Lorentz at the moment, and his simple no nonsense approach of executing his coach’s asks has worked out so far.

Of course, Berube liking Lorentz is good, but hopefully Brad Treliving won’t fall into the trap that often occurs when a coach likes a player and Lorentz receives too much term or money. He’s great as a hard working guy looking to stay in the league. Don’t ruin him with job security or starting to ask of