Leafs Hire Craig Berube

 

Photo From New York Times

The worst-kept secret in Toronto is finally official as Craig Berube is the team's 41^st head coach. We have heard Berube’s name mentioned with the Leafs from the first day Brad Treliving became the General Manager. With this hire finally official what do the Leafs get in Craig as their bench boss?  He has been a coach in this league for eight seasons spending 2 seasons in Philadelphia where he collected 161 wins with one playoff appearance. He would then as we all know to take over in St Louis on January 1, 2019, with the team in last place in the league they would go on and finish with a record of 38-19-6 making their way into the playoffs and then go on and win the Stanley Cup beating the Boston Bruins. Berube would spend five and a half seasons behind the Blues bench, collecting 206 wins in 382 games. Each season under Berube the Blues had some excellent regular seasons his best would be the 21-22 season where St Louis would finish with 109 points.   

Colton Poroyko gave his thoughts on what Leaf fans can expect with Berube behind the bench, Colton said “he isn’t much of an X’s and O’s kind of coach, but he is a guy who motivates you and he got everyone to buy into their role.”

There have been others who have praised this hiring by the Leafs thinking that Craig will give the Leafs the much-needed change to their mindset when game night arrives. Reporter Andy Strickland tweeted that the country club attitude will be gone from the Maple Leafs. He mentioned that Craig will expect a lot from his players and will hold everyone accountable. Craig is a coach who doesn’t care if you’re a 50-goal scorer or a 5-goal scorer if you don’t perform to his liking you’ll know it.

One question surrounding the Leafs now is What happens to the assistant coaches? One of the assistants for the Leafs Mike Van Ryn was with Craig in St Louis so I think he’ll likely be with Toronto when the season begins. However, there have been a few names that have been floating around as possible replacements. One name out there is Marc Savard who is still under contract with the Calgary Flames. He looked after the Flames Power play. Last season the Flames ranked 27^th on the man advantage but let's be honest last year the Flames were an awful team that will need a retooling this summer. If Savard does replace Guy Boucher and manage the powerplay it will be interesting to see what Marc can do with the likes of Matthews and company. Another name that has been linked to the Leafs may raise some eyebrows is the potential reunion with DJ Smith. I think DJ has the potential to be a good head coach in the league but in his first go-round in Toronto he oversaw Toronto’s powerplay under Mike Babcock, and it was fine during the regular season but come playoff time it struggled. With his name being tossed out there personally I would be surprised if DJ returns to the Leafs bench because he reportedly has a good chance at becoming the head coach of the LA Kings.

 

The summer of speculation is officially underway in Toronto now that the team has named their head coach who will speak to the media Tuesday morning, we now wait to see what happens next in Leaf Land.

As always thank you for reading and of course, Welcome back to Toronto Chief.