Craig Berube says his biggest mistake in Toronto was listening to his players

Craig Berube felt it was his way or the highway and mentioned in a recent interview that when he appeased his player, that's when everything fell apart.

Berube's tenure in Toronto can be summed up as completely polar opposite of one another. In his first season he was helped out by a career year by Mitch Marner and staunch goaltending en route to an Atlantic Division title but a year later found himself in the basement of the exact same division.

That led to him being fired by the Maple Leafs and replaced by Jim Hiller as the team looks to add several new faces and voices in the hopes of revamping not only the lineup but fan interest in a team that had a lot of expectations and always fell flat.

Berube's coaching style was often a critical focus of his time in Toronto, as the hard-nosed head coach employed a very rigorous and tough north-south style of play which involved heavy forechecking, grinding puck battles, and low-scoring affairs.

Craig Berube calls out the Maple Leafs players in recent interview

But for him, it was seemingly his way or the highway and he admitted as such with an appearance on Leafs Morning Take. The former head coach was asked by former Leaf Jay Rosehill if his approach to the game was the reason why Toronto changed course, and Berube believes his coaching wasn't the issue - but the players:

I definitely went in there when I was first hired, to get in there and get them to play a system out of their comfort zone. A style that I believe is successful and what you need to win in the playoffs.

That first year, we did good but not where I wanted us to be...I don't want to say we failed; we still had a real good year but I wasn't where I wanted us to be.

We tried to change a few things, get players to play a little differently, and I tried to appease them as much as I could, and if I had to do it all over again, I would never have done that.

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Well he certainly made some pretty big changes and essentially cut Auston Matthews' production in half, so it's clear whatever system he tried to put in was in full effect. But it is odd that Berube is seemingly avoiding any accountability.

Sure, the players play the game but when you're consistently putting guys in positions to not thrive and expect to do what you want even if they aren't great at it - then call them out for not being good enough - you'll quickly lose the room.

The Berube style only works when your players buy in

Call it what you will, but the Maple Leafs group essentially turned their backs on Berube and tuned him out for a lot of last season. While we don't know the inner workings, we do know that on occasion he would target players like Joseph Woll and William Nylander who despite putting in good performances - were still chastised.

Then you have the story of Berube trying to motivate Nylander in practice and the star forward completely ignored him and decided to completely go against all instructions.

You can tell that as the season wore on, the team got less and less appealing to watch as a team and it wasn't Berube's style, nor was it a style we've seen before. It's just...every man for himself and they did the best they could on a nightly basis.

If you're going to get critiqued for doing good things, then what happens if you fail miserably? Why would you feel motivated to play under a system that a) doesn't suit your skillset and b) has a leader who won't take no for an answer?

It's as if you did everything your boss asked of you, but because you used a red pen you did a terrible job - it's bizarre.

These players stopped buying in to a system that handicapped them and they realized that it wasn't going to work just as much as Berube realized it and his reluctance to give in to his players shows a power dynamic that only caused frustration, anxiety, and a pink slip for the head coach when all was said and done.

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