Craig Berube's First Year With Leafs Shows Huge Impact in One Key Area
Toronto Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube has made several notable improvements to the team in his first year behind the bench, and one key area sticks out the most.
The Toronto Maple Leafs made the biggest change in leadership on the bench in May of last year since November of 2019 when the team hired Sheldon Keefe to replace Mike Babcock.
They ended up terminating Keefe after he was once again unable to lead them past the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
In his place, they hired former 2019 Stanley Cup winning coach Craig Berube, formerly of the St. Louis Blues and Philadelphia Flyers.
While Berube has brought a new element of structure to the Leafs, along with a stronger emphasis on defensive play and accountability, there is also one key aspect that has increased since his hiring - and it's a physical one.
As of March 28, there are at least 11 different Maple Leafs players who have picked up at least a single fighting major this year.
Toronto's Fighting For Survival, Literally
The list of pugilists for the Maple Leafs are as follows:
The Leafs as a whole have 15 total fights, which is less than the 25 that they had in 2023-24 as a team; however, seven of them alone belonged to Ryan Reaves who has since found himself demoted to the minors and only fought once this season.
Fights from the Leafs players shouldn't be too surprising.
During his playing career, Berube was no stranger to dropping the gloves. In addition to his 3,149 penalty minutes, he had 257 career fights; that accounts for 1,285 of his penalty minutes.
Fighting for the Maple Leafs isn't what it once was, where the team at one point employed Tie Domi, Darcy Tucker, and Wade Belak who combined have a total of 293 career fights; an average of 97.6 fights per player (though Domi holds the majority with 188) and a whopping 1,465 minutes in fights alone.
Berube always played with an edge and was more than willing to drop the gloves. It's no surprise that attitude and playing style from his own career has rubbed off on the players he's in charge of now in Toronto.
| POLL | ||
MARS 30 | 592 ANSWERS Craig Berube's First Year With Leafs Shows Huge Impact in One Key Area Was Craig Berube the right choice for Maple Leafs head coach? | ||
| Yes | 500 | 84.5 % |
| No | 92 | 15.5 % |
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