Craig Berube Sends a Strong Message to Scott Laughton After Win Over Avalanche

After trading away a first round pick and prospect Nikita Grebenkin for center Scott Laughton, he was expected to add both some offensive production in addition to his standard defensive fare.

While the defense is there, and he's been able to help offensively through his toughness and grit, he's still yet to register a point for his new club. Whether it's some nerves still kicking around, or that he just hasn't gelled with his new teammates; something just hasn't clicked yet.

But his head coach has an idea.

According to head coach Craig Berube, the Leafs deadline acquisition is trying a bit too hard and looking to do too much, and implored the veteran to keep things simple in order to see results:

Whenever a player comes over to a new team, of course they want to make as big an impact as possible, but a lot of the time can end up being a bit detrimental to the overall structure.

If Laughton is skating around like a headless chicken, trying to get every puck and chasing after opponents, it keeps him out of proper position and allows teams to take advantage of essentially a wild card out on the ice.

He's never been an offensive star, but has 265 career points so he's clearly able to contribute, it's just a matter of when, not if.

Time is ticking however for him to get things rolling and while there's no doubt that he can pick it up eventually, the team only has a handful of games left to figure it out.

But if Laughton can listen to Craig Berube's advice and takes things back to basics and slows things down, his production will start to speed up.

Which can only mean Toronto is going to be on an even better path toward a strong Stanley Cup run.