With Berube gone, the Maple Leafs have left no doubt who’s really in charge

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The day he was hired, new Leafs general manager John Chayka showered the head coach he’d inherited in praise. Craig Berube was a “tremendous coach” and “a good person.”

“We’re going to get together later this week with Mats and go through it all,” Chayka said. “We want to listen and learn, and understand his perspective.”

On Wednesday, he fired Berube. In modern PR parlance, Chayka “released” him - like an aging relative on an ice floe.

In the press release announcing the move, Chayka recycled the formulation he’d used in his introduction – “Craig is a tremendous coach and an even better person.”

Poor Berube. He thought he was coming in for a hug, but he didn’t see the knife.

What is Berube’s legacy in Toronto? Like just about everyone else over the last 60 years, it’s ash. He arrived as the guy who turned St. Louis into Rocky Balboa, and won the Blues a Stanley Cup. He leaves as the guy who couldn’t convince William Nylander to skate backwards, even though everyone swore they’d seen the Swede do it before.

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Correctly or not, this will be seen as the Leafs brass working to placate Auston Matthews. It’s no secret that Matthews wasn’t in love with Berube’s north-south, dump-and-run approach.

Now that human obstacle has been removed. The next coach already knows his marching order – make the captain happy.

It’s not unusual for a team on the make to cede control to its biggest star. The Lakers did it with LeBron James. The Oilers did with Connor McDavid. But at the time, both of those guys wanted to be where they were.

Does Matthews want to be in Toronto? It’s a point of debate he’s done nothing to clear up.

Asked pointedly if “this is the place you want to be” in post-season interviews, Matthews pretended to misunderstand the question: “Yeah, I think all that stuff, I mean, there’s always noise and there’s always chatter. I think personally that I really don’t pay attention to all that. I just focus on myself and focus on this team and try to be part of the solution.”

Like, by getting a more co-operative coach.

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So far, Matthews’s obscurantism is paying off beautifully. The Leafs have spent the last couple of months publicly grovelling. No presser can be held without some mention of getting together soon with Auston, who you’d think lived in a remote Arizona cave system rather than a house with WiFi and phones.

The less Matthews says, the more desperate the Leafs become. If perception is power, who does it seem to you runs things in Toronto after Wednesday’s move?

It isn’t Chayka, who just showed up and is already thrashing his arms, trying to stay afloat. It isn’t Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment CEO Keith Pelley, who’s lashed himself to the least popular hire in team history, and has his own troubles.

It isn’t Mats Sundin, because nobody understands exactly what his job is, including, it would seem, Mats Sundin. It isn’t owner Edward Rogers, who seems happy standing just off-stage rubbing his hands together suggestively. And it isn’t the coach, because the Leafs don’t have one any more. It’s Matthews, the player who may or may not be in the process of quitting. He’ll let them know what he’s thinking whenever he feels like it. Meanwhile, the Leafs are left guessing what he wants.

Will Berube be enough? What about the rest of the coaching staff? How about the backroom people? How deep have their bows been as Matthews passes them in the hallway these last couple of years?

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Take a look around at the teams still remaining in the playoffs. Different vibes on each of them, but they are all led. The Leafs have become a team that follows – trends, vibes, their most famous player.

Pushing Berube off the boat does have the effect of creating a new Leafs team. Whatever comes next, it will be Chayka’s vision (after he checks in with Mats, and Auston, and maybe Keith, and he’ll probably swing by Ed’s house to discuss big picture, too).

So whatever comes next will be its own era.

I have a suspicion that, in a year’s time, the Leafs will be missing Craig Berube. A man of uncommon dignity, he was so close to being the hero of this story.

You can identify the moment it went wrong – early in the second period of the third game against Florida in the 2025 playoffs. Leafs up two games to none, leading 3-1.

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If they’d played like a Berube team then, this might all have turned out different. Instead, they did what their coach has never done in his life – they flinched. They’ve been flinching ever since.

Under another, less self-possessed leader, that year-long fall would have been a roller coaster coming off the track and catching fire. You’d have heard the screaming in Buffalo.

Through force of personality – never panicked, never caught short on an answer, an occasional flash of wit – Berube kept the Leafs on the rails. You knew he wasn’t happy, but he never complained. It wasn’t until the very end that it went wobbly.

Berube was the Toronto Maple Leafs coach out of central casting. Had the look, the pedigree, the death stare, a whisper of gentleness, everything you could want. So they didn’t like the system? You’ll notice that players never give the system a shout-out when they win. It’s only there to be an excuse when they lose.

From the perspective of a club spokesperson, the Leafs aren’t going to find someone better suited than Berube.

I almost feel sorry for the next guy, whoever he is. Not only does he have to follow one of the great bench statesmen in the game. He has to do it with Auston Matthews’s hand up the back of his shirt, letting him know what he can do and when he can do it.