Chatter Around Craig Berube Starting to Heat Up as Maple Leafs Scuffle

Thursday night was an improvement in the box score for the Toronto Maple Leafs, earning a point in a 4-3 overtime loss to the red-hot Los Angeles Kings. If you didn’t watch the game, you might feel alright about that result against the NHL’s best road team; however, those who tuned in likely want to erase the game from their memory.

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Just as Drew Doughty said in his postgame interview, the Kings absolutely dominated the Maple Leafs, and if it weren’t for a 33-save performance from Dennis Hildeby, Toronto would have left empty-handed.

It wasn’t just the lopsided 37-15 shot differential; it was the fact that Los Angeles seemed to have the puck all night long, a far too familiar trend for Craig Berube‘s squad, and the longer this continues to drag out, speculation about his job status will only get louder.

In fact, it’s already begun, as Jonas Siegel of The Athletic pondered how much runway Berube has after yet another poor showing on Thursday.

Siegel wrote:

“Improvement is going to have to actually show up in the results at some point. And if it doesn’t, management is going to have to decide whether someone else can get this team moving in the right direction. How many more games of this brand of hockey would it take for that to happen? If this keeps up for another week, say, what then? Would U.S. Thanksgiving be the line of demarcation? The Edmonton Oilers replaced Jay Woodcroft with Kris Knoblauch on Nov. 12, 2023, after only 13 games. Closer to home, Mike Babcock was fired by the Leafs after 23 games in 2019-20.”

Berube in the Hot Seat Already?

It’s pretty crazy to believe that we’re having these conversations just 18 games into Berube’s second season behind the bench in Toronto, but in this market, with the window shrinking on the core, time is of the essence.

We can continue to say that an 8-8-2 record isn’t all that bad, given the mood around the team and the way they’re playing, but only four of these 18 games have been against playoff teams from a year ago, so things are only going to get tougher the rest of the way.

The rest of the Atlantic Division keeps accumulating points, and that doesn’t feel like it’s going to stop anytime soon, so the Maple Leafs are going to need to turn things around, or drastic change could be on the horizon.

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