Craig Berube addressed the media after the Maple Leafs’ 5-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues, which dropped the team’s record to 4-4-0.
On where the game went wrong for the team:
We made mistakes, bottom line. Defensive mistakes. There was a lack of awareness on some of them.
For me, we gave them three goals. It shouldn’t happen.
On whether it is harder to digest given the recent loss in Columbus:
All losses are hard to digest, whether it is this one now, or… They are all hard to digest.
We will look at stuff tomorrow and get better.
On what the defensive issues of the last two games are stemming from:
I am not going to go back to the Columbus game, but I will talk about this one. We are just losing coverage. We are not helping each other out in coverage areas. There is too much time and space on some of them instead of being physical and closing plays out.
The PK goal — the forward is in the wrong spot, and they get it to the front of the net. Some of them are mental mistakes. On some of them, we have to be harder and more physical killing plays.
On the back-to-back lopsided losses:
We are going through some adversity right now. We went into Columbus and got beat, and we got beat here at home tonight. We have to look at the tape.
For me, we are giving up too many odd-man rushes right now. We have to nip that in the bud. That is number one. Before the last two games, we were pretty good in that area. We have to fix that. That is a problem right now.
You are going to go through tough times like this throughout the year. You have to find a way to dig out of it and get the guys better. We all have to be better, myself included. We all have to be better.
We will get to the work tomorrow and get ready for Boston.
On his emotions on the bench towards the top line after the 3-1 Blues goal:
Again, the third goal is just not doing things right. It was lazy hockey on the goal. That is the bottom line.
On Jake McCabe’s between-the-legs pass in his own zone prior to the 3-1 Blues goal:
A lot of that, in these last two games, is our team getting too cute for me. We have to play direct. We don’t need that kind of stuff.
On another unsuccessful night on the power play:
They got some looks again tonight. They get looks, but they’re still not seeing it. They are not really seeing it right now.
They’ll get it going. We’ll keep working on it. At least we converged to the net more tonight and got pucks there more tonight, you know?
The other thing: We had 41 or 42 shots, but I think they had 25 blocked shots. You have to do a better job of not allowing teams to block those shots, whether it is a little bit of movement getting pucks through.
We have to be better. That is all execution stuff.
On Joseph Woll’s performance in his season debut:
First game in a long time. He made some big saves on some of the plays. On the first one, he was screened. He couldn’t see it. We let a guy stand right in front of him and screen him. We didn’t clear him out in front of the net.
On the second goal, the guy is right on the doorstep all alone on the PK.
