Berube, Maple Leafs still searching for 60-minute effort despite improbable comeback win

TORONTO -- Craig Berube didn’t mince his words.

He just wasn’t ready to publicly reveal which specific ones he used in vocally addressing his lackluster team after one of the poorest 40 minutes turned in by the Toronto Maple Leafs in recent memory.

Suffice it to say, his animated comments to his players in the second intermission were not for family consumption.

“Yeah, 'Chief' came in and said a few things,” goalie Anthony Stolarz said after the Maple Leafs' improbable 4-3 comeback win against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday. “You guys can use your imagination for that.”

In that regard, it’s easy to connect the dots when it comes to the enraged coach.

Because he had every right to be frustrated.

Sure, the Maple Leafs had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, overcoming a three-goal deficit with a four-goal explosion in the span of 10:12 in the third period to turn the once moribund crowd at Scotiabank Arena into a frenzied throng.

Yet even the satisfaction of somehow getting two points out of the game could not overcome Berube’s disappointment.

That was evident in his postgame press conference. With no more questions coming in from the media, he improvised by offering one final unprovoked observation before leaving the room.

“It’s got to be better,” he said. “That’s the bottom line.”

He’s not wrong.

In the end, Berube understands that, through 13 games of the young season, his team has yet to play a full 60 minutes. Yes, their 7-5-1 record for 15 points is not a bad way to come out of the gates in 2025-26. But the eye test shows this has been a Jekyll-and-Hyde outfit that still hasn’t found that elusive consistency.

Monday was a prime example of that.

Coming off a 5-2 victory on the road against the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday, Berube was expecting the Maple Leafs to burst out of the gates and carry forward the momentum of one of their better performances of the season.

Instead, it was anything but.

By the first intermission Toronto trailed 2-0 and had been outshot 8-5. That was bad enough.

The worst was yet to come, however.

The second period saw the Penguins up their lead to 3-0 and outshoot the Maple Leafs 17-3 in the process. Perplexed fans in the building didn’t even boo when the horn sounded for the second intermission, likely because they were in shock at what they were seeing.

So, for that matter, were the players. Just ask Toronto defenseman Morgan Rielly, who agreed it was the poorest period turned in by the team in a long time.

“Yeah, I think it was, in terms of holding onto the puck and executing and making plays and playing with speed,” he told NHL.com. “There was none of that.”

His teammates sang a similar tune.

Forward William Nylander called it “terrible” and “unacceptable.” Captain Auston Matthews said the execution “just wasn’t good enough.” Stolarz said it “was just not up to our standard.”

So what changed heading into a third period in a game in which the home team had just eight shots in the first 40 minutes?

“We kind of had to wake up and put our foot down in the third,” Stolarz said. “And we did that.”

In terms of Xs and Os, the Maple Leafs got back to what Berube has been preaching to them for more than a year: playing north-south with a tough, physical forecheck instead of going east-west and attempting to make fancy plays.

“We’d been struggling to find our identity the past five or six games before the Philly game,” Rielly said. “And so, it was just about, 'Hey, let’s get real.' And we were able to do that in the third.

“Having said that, you still need to address how you got to that spot.”

Indeed, falling three goals behind is not normally the recipe for success.

Then again, this was no normal comeback.

It was Matthews who got it going, scoring at 3:31 of the third to ignite a three-goal outburst in the span of 3:24 that included a pair from Nylander.

Forward Bobby McMann then sealed the deal, scoring the winner with 6:17 remaining.

Under those circumstances, the expectation would be that the coach embraced his team’s feisty final 20 minutes to secure the win. Instead, he could only shrug his shoulders when asked why a full 60-minute effort eluded his players on this night.

“I have no clue,” Berube said. “I have no answer for that right now.”

That, in itself, speaks volumes of what the coach thinks of the state of his team.