‘Right off the rails’: Berube blasts Leafs’ defensive commitment after latest loss

TORONTO — Craig Berube has a front-row seat to what is quickly becoming a horror show.

The Maple Leafs head coach thought his team was coming out of a defensive fog that plagued the group in the early part of the NHL schedule as it pivoted to the weekend.

After consecutive home losses accentuated by more breakdowns and egregious turnovers, Berube and his staff are going back to the drawing board — again.

Toronto blew a 4-2 lead in Sunday’s second period as part of a 5-4 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, some 24 hours after a 5-3 defeat to the Boston Bruins.

“It’s just a mindset,” Berube said after his team surrendered 46 shots and fell to 8-7-1. “If you want to be a good defensive team, you gotta check, you gotta have good sticks, you gotta be hard, you gotta win battles, and you’ve gotta have good structure. 

“We don’t have any of that right now.” 

The veteran bench boss saw encouraging signs in the Leafs’ approach without the puck ahead of the Boston contest thanks to three straight wins, but there remain clear deficiencies that must be rectified. 

Toronto has allowed an average of 3.75 goals against per game — good for an ugly 31st in the 32-team league — after giving up a solid 2.79 per outing in 2024-25.

“I just keep working at it,” said Berube, who hoisted the Stanley Cup with the St. Louis Blues in 2019. “You look at video, we gotta have discussions with players, with the team … we’re scoring enough goals every game to win games, but we’re letting in too many goals.

“Pretty much the season is, we don’t value the defensive side of the puck enough.”

Depth defenceman Philippe Myers, who’s in the lineup with shutdown option Chris Tanev out with an upper-body injury, had a second straight rough night, with his worst moment coming on a giveaway that paved the way for Carolina’s fourth goal. The usually steady Jake McCabe then made a similar blue-line gaffe in the lead-up to Sunday’s winner.

That came after the Leafs hung third-string goaltender Dennis Hildeby out to dry in the second with chance after chance, including a string of breakaways.

“Stuff that we just can’t seem to get right or we can’t seem to have a consistency over a full 60 minutes,” said Toronto captain Auston Matthews, who finished with a goal and an assist. “There’s gonna be times where there’s momentum shifts and stuff like that, but to break that momentum as quickly as possible and get back on the right side of things, we’re not doing that quick enough.” 

Leafs centre John Tavares said the club is making errors that simply can’t happen in the NHL.

“At times we did some really good things, earned opportunities and were able to give ourselves the lead,” said Tavares, who had a goal and an assist. “And then our game, just for whatever reason, becomes really immature and we don’t manage the game very well.”

“We have a lot of very good hockey players,” he added. “We have a very veteran team, so it’s just the decision to do it shift after shift.” 

Toronto winger William Nylander had two goals to round out the offence, but was guilty of giving the puck away for one of the second-period breakaways.

“We’ve just got to focus on that aspect and really bear down,” he said of finding consistency. “Just comes down to simplifying and not trying to make another play.” 

Tavares said the Leafs aren’t panicking, but after their league-high 12th home game, the road is only going to get more difficult if the standard of work, commitment and attention to detail isn’t met.

“We gain some traction and then we shoot ourselves in the foot again and just put ourselves in a tough spot,” he said. “There’s a ton of hockey left to be played. We’ve just gotta pick ourselves back up and get ready for the next opportunity, and build from there.” 

A disappointed Berube said Toronto, which is finally getting production from its power play, has to show a lot more when the opposition is on the attack.

“We were really trending in the right direction without the puck,” he said. “We’re scoring goals, but now we just went right off the rails the last two games defensively … it’s caused by puck play, costly turnovers.

“And the urgency that’s needed to defend.” 

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