The Maple Leafs could borrow a famous line from the old Get Smart! TV series:
“Sorry about that, Chief!”
In Craig Berube’s first game against his old St. Louis Blues, the 2019 Stanley Cup champions who also fired him last year, his new team let him, themselves and 18,414 down. The 5-1 loss Thursday ended with them skating off Scotiabank Arena to booing.
It was a second straight clunker after a 6-2 setback in Columbus, neither of their foes playoff teams last year.
Our takeaways:
HOLE LOT OF TROUBLE
The big guns will not light it up every night, especially with Berube stressing more physical play this year. But what has happened to the stars’ commitment to defence?
Auston Matthews let Pavel Buchnevich get behind him and screen Joseph Woll on the first goal, duly noted by Berube, and during penalty killing duty he’s been entrusted with, Matthews was the closest to Dylan Holloway, who was open in the slot while all four Leafs were pre-occupied with a scrum in the corner.
The third Blues’ marker began with Matthews fumbling a Woll relay in the corner. That had the needle in the red for Berube on the bench.
“That goal is just not doing things right,” the coach growled. “Lazy hockey, that’s the bottom line.
“We’re just losing coverage, not helping each other out. Some of them are mental mistakes, some we have to be harder. We have to be better, myself included.”
That mood could make Friday’s practice a lot more intense, as Berube had already been vocal in workouts even when the Leafs were in good form.
Matthews, as new captain, now has to speak for the team.
“(Struggles) up and down the lineup and it starts with me,” he said. “A number of things we obviously didn’t do good tonight. Didn’t win battles, light on pucks.”
Matthews, Mitch Marner and Matthew Knies were all minus three and William Nylander was rightly kicking himself for a “stupid” play on a rush, dithering with a puck that turned into a 3-on-1 Jake Neighbours’ goal.
“We’ve sure taken a dip,” Nylander said a week that started with a staement win over Tampa Bay. “That’s on me and everyone else on the team to pick it up a notch.”
It won’t get any easier with their return to Boston on Saturday, site of the Game 7 playoff defeat, and on to undefeated (6-0-0) Winnipeg.
LOAD BEARING WOLL
In his first game of the season after a stint on injured reserve, Woll needed a lot more help.
But if the Leafs weren’t fired up enough to win one for their coach, it wasn’t going to end well for Woll in a game against his hometown team.
Berube noted he looked like a ‘keeper who’d gone two weeks without game action. But it would’ve been an earlier blowout had Woll not stopped a Brayden Schenn breakaway already down two and made a nice save on Mathieu Joseph when Morgan Rielly lost a puck.
Woll made 22 stops, but there’s no threat to Anthony Stolarz and his .938 save percentage making the start in Boston. And while the Dardenne Prairie, Mo., native called it “surreal” to be facing the Blues, how about GTA product Jordan Binnington making a bid for the Team Canada crease job at the 4 Nations Face-off in a few months’ time, with 41 stops? He got within four of Mike Liut’s franchise record of 151 wins.
POWER DOWN
Another night of power play futility, 0-for-4, 3-for-27 through eight games and 4-for-48 counting the playoff series with the Bruins.
In what is becoming a broken record, the Leafs keep talking about taking the more direct route, attacking the puck, yadda, yadda, yadda. A better power play that isn’t so pass-happy could equalize some of the recent setbacks.
“It can,” Berube agreed with a touch of exasperation. “They got some looks again tonight, but they’re not seeing it, you know what I mean? They’ll get it going. At least we converged on the net more and got more pucks.
“We had 42 shots, but they had 24 blocks. We have to do a better job there, whether it’s a little bit more movement to get pucks through. That’s all execution.”
BEN THERE, DONE THAT
One Leaf who gave his all Thursday was defenceman Simon Benoit. He had a couple of shot blocks, nearly triggered a goal on a rush that Matthews just missed on and when Benoit’s stick broke on a shot at the Blues’ line, he raced all the way back to bump Brandon Saad just enough to disrupt a 2-on-0 for Woll to save.
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