Photo credit: Maple Leafs

Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube has held a very intense training camp so far and revealed this week just how the team will play under his tutelage.

During the Sheldon Keefe era in Toronto, you never really knew which Maple Leafs team you were going to see on any given night. At times, we saw an uninspired, uncomposed, problematic Leafs team and at other times we saw what appeared to be an unbeatable juggernaut. The problem was that there was far too much gray area in between and no real way to ascertain what we should expect.

Under Craig Berube, that shouldn’t be a problem. The new bench boss spoke with the media this week and really hammered home the message that he wants his team to have a clear identity and to play a certain way every night. Win or lose, when you play the Maple Leafs, you have to know it’s going to be a battle. Here’s what “Chief” had to say about how he wants the team to play.
“We definitely want to be a north-south team, but there is some high-end skill here – more than we had in St. Louis. It is not that we didn’t have skilled players in St. Louis. I am not here to take the sticks out of these guys’ hands, but there has to be an identity of how we want to play, and we want to play a north-south game.

We want to be a hard team to play against. We want to check. At the same time, we have a bunch of players with the ability to score goals.

In the end, it is all about what is best for the team. That is the most important thing.”
It’s good to know that Berube plans to let the great players be great players, but also that he plans to have them adhere to the program, constantly trying to move the puck up, but then to drive back hard defensively when they’re not in possession of the puck. Furthermore, finishing checks and sticking up for your teammates is likely a huge part of the message being sent during camp.

For players like Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander, they won’t be playing in a box. Berube will give them some freedom. However, it will also be important to see how he responds if/when these players don’t commit to their back-checks or attempt to get too cute with the puck and end up costing the team a goal.

I’m very excited to see our first look at the new-look Leafs system on Sunday when they take on the Ottawa Senators in pre-season action.