But it’s not just McMann making mistakes. Berube is seeing growing pains throughout the lineup as the Leafs, who have dropped three straight decisions and four of their last five games, adjust to his north-south system.
A lot of familiar issues are popping up around the Leafs, who fell to 4-4-1 following Saturday’s overtime loss to the Bruins. Toronto also got off to slow starts under former coach Sheldon Keefe. Last year they opened slightly better at 5-3-1. The previous two years they also started 4-4-1.
“It’s game nine, right,” captain Auston Matthews stressed. “It takes time sometimes. It’s not going to click perfectly right away. I think you just want to take positive steps in the right direction. [Saturday] was competitively a much better game than we had the previous two.”
The Leafs got outscored 11-3 in losses to the Columbus Blue Jackets and St. Louis Blues, two non-playoff teams last season, earlier in the week. Squandering points to teams below them in the standings has been an issue in recent years. Toronto has also struggled to beat Boston and not just in the playoffs. The Bruins have now won eight straight regular-season games against the Leafs.
Boston jumped on Toronto early on Saturday, holding a 10-5 edge in shots after 20 minutes. High-danger chances favoured the Bruins 6-1 in the first period, per NaturalStatTrick.com.
“We just weren’t able to break out cleanly,” winger Mitch Marner said. “That’s something we’ve talked about that we’ve got to be better at. We’ve got to do a better job on the walls as wingers.”
Marner felt the team got better as the game progressed.
“As a five-man unit, we got to do a better job supporting each other, talking to each other, getting out cleanly,” Marner said. “I thought we did that in the second and third, and started getting a little more results up ice with it.”
Berube feels his players are “close” to playing the style he wants.
“We got back to checking a lot better,” he said. “We were hard around our net and hard in the battles.”
Berube also liked the offensive zone time generated on Saturday, but didn’t feel the players did enough to translate that into good looks. It’s an issue Keefe also grappled with.
“We’ve got to get more shots from the top through,” Berube said. “That’s one thing. And look to shoot a little quicker. There’s times where, in the third period, all our forwards are jammed at the net and [we] couldn’t get it through. We need to pop off and create some separation a little bit more in the offensive zone.”
The Leafs only generated six shots on net in the third period, despite trailing for almost all of it.
Clearly, there’s still work to be done. But it’s not easy to improve when the calendar is condensed. Toronto initially planned to hold a practice on Sunday before travelling to Winnipeg, but scrapped the workout.
“Long travel today and, you know, overtime game, hard-fought game,” Berube explained. “Some guys had a lot of minutes.”
It’s been a busy stretch. The Leafs put forward a strong effort on Monday in a home win against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Then it was off to Columbus where they fell 6-2 on Tuesday. After a day off on Wednesday, the team failed to bounce back in a 5-1 home loss to the St. Louis Blues.
Next up is a date against the undefeated Jets (8-0-0) on Monday.
The Leafs have only held one practice (Friday) in the last nine days. It’s hard to stay sharp without those additional reps.
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