Quick Shifts: Craig Berube says it would be an ‘honour’ to coach Maple Leafs

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A quick mix of the things we gleaned from the week of hockey, serious and less so, and rolling four lines deep. I had no idea you were mic’d up when I confessed my love.

1. Move aside, Joe Biden.

Craig Berube is on the campaign trail.

The Stanley Cup-winning head coach, booted midseason by the St. Louis Blues, has snatched a page from Dean Evason’s playbook and made it crystal clear this week in multiple radio and podcast appearances that he wants to jump right back behind an NHL bench.

“I want to coach again. I enjoy it. I want to get back in the game,” Berube told Jay Rosehill and Nick Alberga of The Leafs Nation. 

Berube has returned home to the Philadelphia area, spending quality time with his family, but the no-nonsense bench boss has no designs on retirement.

The 58-year-old free agent is keeping close tabs on the league and should have no trouble finding work in the off-season — if not sooner.

The Alberta native’s priority is to find a fit with a general manager he enjoys working with and an organization heading in the right direction. 

In other words: He wants another ring and would have no qualms coaching under the spotlight of a hot Canadian market. 

“It would be an honour to coach there for the Toronto Maple Leafs, if that ever happened. It’s (one of) if not the best hockey market in the world. A great organization that does everything they can to try to win,” Berube told TLN, when asked specifically about the Leafs, for whom he played in 1991-92.

Smartly, Berube is striking an enthusiastic tone not just about Toronto — which is enjoying another fine regular season under Sheldon Keefe — but any team he’s asked about.

A more realistic landing spot for Berube is Ottawa, where interim coach Jacques Martin, at age 71, is simply keeping a seat warm for the next leader.

The question here: Will any team jump the market and hire Berube early? Or do the GMs seriously considering a swap wait this one out till summertime?

One doesn’t have to dig too deep into the memory to recall unemployed Cup winner Barry Trotz supplying similarly spicy interview fodder for a Canadian audience, and Trotz ended up with nice GM gig in Nashville.

“Anytime you can get to a Canadian market, it’s pretty special,” Berube told Real Kyper & Bourne Thursday. “I think every coach would like to have a Brady Tkachuk.”

2. Love how the Professional Women’s Hockey League has not only arrived with a bang — high energy, flush attendance — but with its own set of smart rule tweaks that separate it from the NHL.

I’m a big fan of the PWHL’s 3-2-1-0 point system, which properly rewards the difficult feat of a regulation win. 

It’s understood that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman will cling, in effort to impart parity, to the two-point system like your kid to his favourite stuffy. But that generous format devalues the 82-game gauntlet and makes it difficult for hot teams to gain ground in the standings if the clubs ahead keep stacking loser points.

The PWHL has also ditched the trapezoid and creatively decided that a shorthanded goal can free the penalized player from the box early. Two more wins.

And it would be fun to see the NHL pilfer some of the women’s ideas here. (Maybe the AHL is no longer the only league that can test rule tweaks for the Show?)

The only PWHL rule I’m not a fan of is the best-of-five shootout. Just end it, already. Also, individual skaters are permitted to shoot again after the first five attempts. In the NHL, no repeat shooters are allowed.

I prefer the men’s rules on this one because it opens the door for unlikely heroes (see: Gregor, Noah).

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3.  Quote of the Week.

“There’s a lot of great sports organizations here. But hockey might be taking over.” — Jared McCann, riding a Winter Classic high in Seattle

4. The Seattle Kraken received an outdoor game before the franchise was two-and-a-half seasons old. The Vegas Golden Knights got two in their first seven years of existence.

The Columbus Blue Jackets have been around for 24 years and have yet to play on an outdoor rink. They’re overdue.

The Jackets have been lobbying for one of these big-splash events — which are major marketing and economic boons locally — and the NHL is looking long and hard at Ohio Stadium, home of the football Buckeyes, as a potential venue. 

Capacity of that venue: 102,780.

5. Incredible to see Max Pacioretty back on the ice after 353 days away from game action. 

The sniper spent two months contemplating retirement as he stared at another long rehabilitation after tearing his right Achilles twice in less than a year. Instead, he persevered.

Pacioretty, 35, played just five games last season and only 39 the season before that.

Now, he’s hoping on a moving train and trying to boost a Washington Capitals’ offence that has slipped all the way to 30th in the league (2.36 goals per game).

“When I look at my kids and my family,” Pacioretty told reporters, “I don’t want to ever say that I gave up on something that I could have continued doing.”

Hard not to root for the guy.

6. The Maple Leafs return to Nick Robertson’s home state of California once a year, yet the third-line winger’s total ice time on the three-game trip will be 8:39. 

Sparsely used in Tuesday’s shutout over the Kings, Robertson is being served consecutive scratches in Anaheim and San Jose — in favour of depth centre Pontus Holmberg getting a tryout on left wing.

“We have so many guys that can be in the lineup. So, I think it’s just more dealing with that. It’s not a situation that I’m not used to,” says Robertson, taking his benching with maturity.

“It’s all mental. The game is all mental. I don’t think it’s anything that I’m playing bad or anything. 

“I’m happy [with] the way I’ve been playing — and they said that to me. So, I think it’s just more [about] coming back in and not overthinking things while you’re out of the lineup.”

Before flying to L.A., Robertson had goals in back-to-back games and was feeling happy with his performance. 

After multiple false starts at the NHL level, the 22-year-old has already set career highs in games played (24), goals (five), assists (six) and plus/minus (plus-2). His biggest strides have been between the ears.

Robertson is a hockey junkie who used to overthink his play long after the buzzer sounded. He’s in a better place “mentally,” Robertson says. 

“Just being more confident, more comfortable with the guys,” he says, “makes it easier on the ice.”

That said, the next step in his development is in the defensive zone, where Robertson has endured challenging stretches dealing with hard rims along his boards with the opposing defenceman pinching down.

He knows he’s got to get those pucks cleared, and it doesn’t always happen.

Bigger picture, there is some competition and evaluation taking place here.

Keefe says Robertson’s 24-game sample has given the team a good sense of where he’s at. Now the Leafs must find out what they have in Holmberg, who’s older (24) and bigger but less of an offensive threat. Can they turn a fourth- or fifth-line centre into a third-line winger?

Where do these players fit on the current roster? And, more pointedly, does either fit in a playoff lineup that will have to bang bodies with Boston and/or Florida?

7. Nils Hoglander attempting a Trevor Zegras–inspired Michigan pass from behind the net only to have it casually caught by Jacob Bernard-Docker is my favourite highlight of 2024:

8. Chatting with Jonathan Marchessault at the Winter Classic in Seattle, he reached into the little bag of goodies he keeps in his locker and pulled a black, hard-plastic rat.

The winger has been hanging onto the rodent since 2016-17, when he broke out for a 30-goal season with the Florida Panthers — the same team that gave up on him at the Vegas expansion draft.

“That’s part of where I’ve been. I played for Florida,” explains Marchessault, who brings the memento with him on all road games. “Part of the journey.”

Marchessault cherishes the projectile but does wonder how fans in Sunrise can get away with the launching those suckers at players.

“At some point, they gotta stop, right? People were just trying to hit us, like, in the face with it,” he said. “Like, there’s definitely not a lot of baseball players out there in the stands. But it still stings if you get that in the face.”

9. Walking around downtown Seattle a few hours after the Winter Classic, I couldn’t help but notice some familiar faces playing mini sticks through the floor-to-ceiling windows of an illuminated hotel conference room.

Despite having just played three periods of real hockey and taking a loss, there were hockey dads Marchessault and Alex Pietrangelo with sticks in their hands and grins on their faces, messing around with their energetic children on a wide-open carpet.

Those old hockey tournament traditions stick with us.

10. Bobby McMann didn’t let the stress of his first NHL misconduct and first pro fight disrupt his one day off in sunny California on Thursday.

He chilled by the pool at the resort, found a delicious grilled-grouper burrito by the beach, then sat by the water to soak in the Newport Beach sunset before meeting a group of 20 or so teammates for a big dinner.

From our perspective, the controversial neutral-zone check McMann laid on Pavel Mintyukov on Wednesday that sent the Ducks defenceman crashing into the boards looked clean. Or, at least, unworthy of the major penalty and misconduct the officials dished out after video review.

Keefe made a point that he didn’t want McMann to play any less physical as a result of the punishment.

“It’s hard from my perspective. I felt like it was shoulder-on-shoulder,” McMann told me. “When I finished the hit, that’s when I recognized the distance away from the boards. It’s something that happens so fast. You’re never trying to hurt the guy. You’re trying to stop him from dumping the puck in. Just trying to get a body on him, and it ended up maybe looking worse than I anticipated.”

McMann did anticipate the retaliatory fight, however, instigated by ex-Leaf Ilya Lyubushkin. 

“I thought someone might come, so I was looking around. I saw him barrelling,” McMann said, smiling. “I just kinda waited for him and tried to get a good grab and kinda just tussled around a bit.”

11. In light of the much-discussed Ryan Hartman–Cole Perfetti incident, in which the former exacted high-sticking revenge on the latter after a recorded threat to do so, a debate around mic’d-up players has surfaced.

Should the Department of Player Safety have access to Hartman’s on-ice words before doling out punishment?

I remember asking veteran Luke Schenn last spring about the concerns players have about wearing a wire. Schenn offered a thoughtful response.

“There’s probably some things [not fit for air],” he told me. “That’s probably what you have producers for. Some stuff shouldn’t be getting leaked, ever. When a guy’s mic’d up, you typically let [teammates] know, or it’ll be written on the board: ‘Hey, I’m mic’d up tonight.’

“I don’t know if guys necessarily love wearing it. It’s one of those things, you do it for the fans, for the TV. From an outside perspective, when I’m watching a game, it’s interesting to see what’s going on, for sure. But if you’re actually the guy wearing it, you gotta be a little careful.

“You get caught in the heat of the moment. You forget you’re wearing it half the time. You’re conscious of it, then you’re not. You go back and forth. That’s something, I don’t disagree with [Brad Marchand]. Stuff should be filtered through.

“You don’t want to get the guy in trouble. The player is doing a favour to everyone watching, to see what’s going on. It’s not meant to be used as fire or taken the wrong way.

“He’s not loving the fact he’s wearing the mic. He’s doing it for the fans, and we all understand that. We all have a certain role to carry. It’s great for TV, but I don’t think anything should be leaked when it’s not filtered through.”

12. Auston Matthews will join Connor McDavid in captaining all-star teams next month in Toronto and will participate in the weekend’s exclusive, winner-take-all $1-million skills tournament.

Though Matthews was not consulted as thoroughly as McDavid on the new individual format, the centreman did have some input and was given a heads-up on the plan.

“I think it’s something different,” Matthews, an All-Star Game staple, says. “We’ll see how it goes, how it plays out, but hopefully we can bring some extra excitement to the fans and to the weekend itself.

“It makes some little adjustments and just makes it a better experience for everybody — the players and the fans. … Should be fun.”

Rumblings are already stirring that Matthews’ pal, Ontario native Justin Bieber, will serve as his celebrity co-captain for the draft.

“We’ll see,” Matthews says. “I don’t want to give anything away I’m not supposed to.”

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