TORONTO — There is an old game-operations trick at Scotiabank Arena.
When the fans soaking in a lacklustre performance from the home team transition from excited to restless to silent to frustrated, the staffer in charge of the in-arena music cranks the volume to drown out the locals’ boos. Lest they get contagious.
Thursday was the first time this season that Toronto Maple Leafs game ops felt the need to distract from an on-ice disappointment, as the blue team was appropriately razzed for its problematic effort in a return to .500 hockey.
It’s one thing to lose a revenge game for your new coach after promising to bounce back from Tuesday’s beatdown in Columbus. It’s another to stray from all the defensive principles he’s been preaching in a problematic 5-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues.
Pick your issue from the Berube Bowl:
• So stingy and structured through the season’s first half-dozen games, over the past two Toronto has been dishing out odd-man rushes like your neighbour will be dishing out mini Snickers next week.
“We gotta fix that. That’s a problem right now,” Berube said, bluntly. Which is how he says most things. “We made mistakes, bottom line. Defensive mistakes.”
• The Maple Leafs lost the net-front battles at both ends of the rink, a broken commandment in the Bible of Berube.
“Two games now, we’re just not good enough. Pretty simple. Just light on pucks. They won battles. They won the net-front tonight. It’s pretty simple,” captain Auston Matthews said.
“Just a bad game all around, up and down the lineup. Starts with me.”
• Following an 0-for-4 night, the talent-rich power play has tumbled to 11.1 per cent (26th league-wide), it’s ineffectiveness was catalyst for the boo birds.
“They’re not really seeing it right now,” Berube says of a disconnected top unit that has spent more time than usual working on 5-on-4 situations in practice but has yet to get rolling.
“We just got to start attacking the net, not trying to look for the perfect play,” William Nylander said.
• Over the past six periods, Matthews’ top line is a shocking minus-6. And Berube let them hear about it in the wake of some casual D-zone coverage on Alex Texier’s second-period strike from the slot.
“It was lazy hockey on the goal,” Berube said. “That’s the bottom line.”
• On offence, the Leafs struggled to find the balance between shooting the puck quickly, the way their coach prefers, but not smack into the shinpads of their defenders.
Berube pointed to St. Louis’s 24 blocked shots and demanded his Leafs create more movement to create cleaner shot lanes.
• Then there was straight-line defenceman Jake McCabe attempting a between-the-legs pass near Joseph Woll’s crease.
“Our whole team is getting a little cute. We just gotta play direct,” Berube said. “We don’t need that kinda stuff.”
The buzzword upon Berube’s hiring was accountability.
That is what he was hired to install.
And we have seen some of that with his scratches of depth skaters and his shouting at stars. We also saw Berube send out his fourth line for an O-zone draw after a TV timeout while needing a goal — a tactic his predecessor seldom used.
“He’s super direct and he’s super hard on guys. He really knows his stuff, and really knows how to help develop guys and make them more complete players,” says Blues star Jordan Kyrou, who caught a few earfuls from his first NHL coach.
“It’s definitely intimidating. You know, he’s a little scary at times, but you learn to take it the right way.”
No doubt, Berube’s current players are aware of this week’s issues.
To a man, the Leafs took personal responsibility for the club’s worst two-game stretch of the season. (Nylander called his O-zone turnover, which led to a Jake Neighbours snipe, “stupid” and demanded better “situational awareness” from himself.)
The first step in fixing a problem is admitting you have one.
“We’ve for sure taken a dip,” Nylander said. “That’s on me and everyone else on the team to pick it up a notch, starting with practice tomorrow.”
Yep, as promised, the Maple Leafs are sounding accountable in their words.
The next step is to be accountable in their actions.
What better place than TD Garden this weekend, in a return to the site of Game 7.
“We’re going through some adversity right now,” Berube said. “We all gotta be better. Myself included.”
Tune in Saturday to see how Berube’s charges respond to the game in which they failed to respond.
Fox’s Fast Five
• Woll made a few brilliant saves — stoning Brayden Schenn on a breakaway, Kyrou point-blank in the slot, and turning away two one-timed blasts on 2-on-1 rushes — yet he got hung for four in his debut.
The St. Louis native’s most memorable moment might have been right before puck drop.
“It was a little surreal,” Woll says. “When the anthems were playing, it was kind of a cool moment just looking across at the team I grew up watching.”
• Morgan Rielly quickly asked an official to fetch the puck so Oliver Ekman-Larsson could have a keepsake for his first goal as a Maple Leaf.
• Limited minutes and all, but Conor Timmins has never looked so confident and effective as a Maple Leaf.
We hear him calling for the puck and see him jumping up in the rush and making quicker decisions. The Leafs are outscoring the opposition 4-2 when he’s on the ice.
Somehow, he escaped Tuesday’s debacle in Columbus and this stinker at home as a plus-2.
At this rate, Timothy Liljegren may never play a hockey game again.
• Ryan Reaves has yet to fight this season, but sometimes the threat of violence is enough.
While many wondered if the veteran would offer a rematch to Matt Rempe Saturday, the young Ranger threw just a couple hits against the Leafs. A relatively quiet night for both heavyweights.
“I told him, ‘If you go out and do something, I would give him one,’ and he buried his own player,” Reaves smiled Thursday. “That was about it, so not much going on.”
• First-year pro Fraser Minten is now practising with the big club as he works his way back from the high-ankle sprain he suffered prior to the season, and we look forward to seeing how he develops with the Marlies soon.
“He’s going to be a good player,” Berube praises. “It obviously was hard on him… not being able to participate in the main camp.
“He’s got a real good head on his shoulders, this guy.”
