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Craig Berube didn't fare well against his old team on Thursday night, with the St. Louis Blues beating up on the Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena. And the head coach didn't mince his words after the 5-1 defeat — the Leafs' second consecutive lopsided loss.
“Our whole team is getting a little cute,” Berube told reporters afterwards, including Sportsnet's Luke Fox. “We just gotta play direct.”
The bench boss continued: “We’re just losing coverage. We’re not helping each other out in the coverage areas. Like, too much time and space on some of the them instead of being physical and closing plays out.”
It was the first time Berube had coached against St. Louis since he was fired by the franchise in December of 2023. The 58-year-old coached the 2018-19 Blues to their inaugural Stanley Cup championship, beating the Boston Bruins in a thrilling Game 7 at TD Garden.
The veteran bench boss certainly would have liked a more positive result against his old squad — but Toronto is reeling after following up a brutal 6-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets with Thursday's poor effort.
Despite the uneven score line, the Leafs outshot the Blues 41-27 in front of the home crowd and won 68.3 percent of faceoffs in the contests. But St. Louis got out to a 2-0 lead on goals by former Edmonton Oilers Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway, and didn't look back.
Joseph Woll made his first start of the season after beginning the campaign on the shelf; he allowed four goals on 26 shots in his 2024-25 debut.
After two tough L's, the Leafs have fallen to .500 at 4-4. They're still in a four-way tie for second in the Atlantic Division with eight points, but it's been a surprising dip after a commanding win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday night.
2 consecutive lopsided losses for Maple Leafs
“We’ve for sure taken a dip,” William Nylander admitted after the loss, per Fox. “That’s on me and everyone else on the team to pick it up a notch.”
Nylander wasn't great on Thursday, notably coughing the puck up to the away team early in the third period in the offensive zone, which led to a Jake Neighbors insurance goal shortly after.
“My play was stupid there in the third period,” the star Swede said. “Gotta be better than that. … At that point in the game, (losing) 3-1 (with) 17 minutes left, there's still a lot (of) time … got to be better situational awareness on my part.”
Berube hasn't been too happy with his team the last couple of games, and he could be seen laying into the top line of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and Matthew Knies during the loss.
The Leafs will look to quickly erase a couple of discouraging defeats when they head to Boston to take on the rival Bruins on Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday. The Blues continue their four-game road trip against the Montreal Canadiens the same night.
