After Friday’s practice, head coach Craig Berube discussed the return of Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies for Saturday’s game in Tampa, Bobby McMann’s injury timeline, the five-forward power-play look, and Nick Robertson’s scoring drought.
Practice Lines – Nov. 29
Lines at Leafs practice
Knies – Matthews – Nylander
Holmberg – Tavares – Marner
Robertson – Minten – Lorentz
Steeves – Dewar – Grebenkin
A. Nylander, ReavesMcCabe – Tanev
Rielly – Ekman-Larsson
Benoit – Timmins
Myers, HakanpääStolarz
Wollat TB tomorrow@TSN_Edge
— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) November 29, 2024
What does it mean to see Auston Matthews back and ready to go?
Berube: It is great. Captain of the team. We missed him. He has been out a while, so it is great to have him back. Looking forward to it. He looks great out there — a lot of energy, skating well, and moving well.
How did Matthew Knies look to you?
Berube: Good — really good. It’s positive. Hopefully, he’ll be in tomorrow. We’ll see, but the signs all point in that direction. He looked really good, too.
What is the latest on Bobby McMann?
Berube: It is still day-to-day, lower body. Timeline is hard for me to tell you exactly, because it’s about how he’s going to feel day-to-day, right? But he’s out right now. I wouldn’t expect him back for a couple of games.
Why did you decide to go back to five forwards on the power play?
Berube: The five forwards looked really good before with the puck movement and quickness of it all. I really like Knies at the net, and I really like JT in the bumper. It’s about how to make it all work, and we are going to see how it goes, but when we did try it, I thought it looked really good. That’s the decision I made.
What did you like the most about how the team weathered the storm without Matthews?
Berube: I was very proud of the guys, obviously. We had guys from the minors playing, and they were all a part of it. They all did a really good job of it.
The key is to not take a step back. Let’s keep pushing. The guys who stepped up — keep stepping up. Even though our captain is back, Knies is back, and we are getting guys back, we have to keep building that foundation that we’ve built and keep pushing. It dropped off a little bit last game, but we have to get ready for Tampa.
What was the thinking behind inserting Matthews with William Nylander and Knies instead of Mitch Marner?
Berube: He has played with those guys before I was here. With the way we are situated right now — guys are still out and missing, including centermen — we wanted to leave Minten in the middle in his position where he has played pretty much his whole life.
Holmberg has played wing or center, so I put him up there. Again, he is a guy who can hang onto pucks in the offensive zone and is defensively responsible.
Have you had conversations with Nick Robertson about how to stay positive during this tough stretch?
Berube: Yeah, for sure, plus a lot of video with the coaches. The positive side of it all is that he just keeps working, which is good. Even today in practice, he is a very hard worker who wants to do well.
When I watch Nick, he has to get around the net a little bit more and find some dirty goals. Sometimes, when you are snakebitten like that, and your shot is not working — it’s not going in — you have to get greasy around the net.
What does Jani Hakanpaa have to do to rejoin the lineup?
Berube: I think the D core has played pretty well. That is a big part of it. I’ve liked Timmins. I’ve liked Benoit. Patience is the best way to put it. They have done a good job there.
What have you liked about Fraesr Minten’s game, and where do you see room for growth?
Berube: He has a lot of room for growth. He is a young kid who hasn’t had much experience in the NHL and didn’t really get much playing time in the minors before he was called up because we needed him.
He just has to keep working on his game and reading the play better. At the NHL level, it is quick. You have to anticipate. He is a very positionally sound player.
It takes time. It’s not just going to happen overnight.
How do you think it’s been going with William Nylander staying out for the full power play? Are you going to stick with it now that Matthews and Knies are back?
Berube: Well, he likes it. Got his ice time up. That’s key. Got to get them minutes up (laughs).
Again, we are missing a lot of players. He is not used on the penalty kill. The ice time works out well. He is the type of guy who can handle it. He plays in his spot there, and he is dangerous.
He makes the second unit better. That is the bottom line: He makes the second unit better.
Did you talk to Nylander at all about a penalty like his the other night? It was out of character.
Berube: For me, on that penalty, you have to have better control of your stick. There was no reason for it to happen. He should’ve just worked his way to the net without even being near the guy. But it is hockey. Things happen. You’re not in their shoes. You don’t know what they are thinking at the time.
We all have to be better. I thought we took some needless penalties in that game, which cost us. If you’re killing for six minutes in the third period and you are down 3-1, it is going to be tough. That is making it really difficult to come back in the game.
Auston Matthews on the perceived “secrecy” around his injury
Matthews: I don’t think there is really any secrecy. I don’t think we did anything outside of the rules for providing information to [the media] in the NHL.
It gets a little blown out of proportion with the marketplace and [the media] being a little bit nosy, but in my mind, we haven’t done anything with secrecy.
I think it is my choice as to whether I want to share the extent of the injury. If you look around the league, it’s upper-body injury, lower-body injury on every single team. I think it has been made out to be a bigger deal than it is.
I don’t really care. It is up for you guys to talk about and do your thing, but I just have to focus on myself, the team, and being the best I can.
Matthew Knies on his injury incident: “I kind of put myself in a tough scenario… You have to keep your head up”
Knies: It was a tough situation. I kind of put myself in a tough scenario. I was just trying to put the puck in. You have to keep your head up. I am kind of upset it led me to getting hurt and missing a few games, but it happens in hockey. I am happy I am healthy now and can play.
I watched [the hit] a few times. I have to trust the league in the sense that they got the play right. [Zach Whitecloud] apologized to me after the game. I don’t think he was intending to hurt me.
I thought it was fine. I am not happy that I was hurt, obviously, but I have to trust the league that they did the right thing.
It is a physical game out there. It happens… I kind of got Dowd pretty good in Washington on accident. Little stuff like that happens. You just have to move forward and move on.
I am happy that he is healthy. I am happy that I am healthy. We can kind of move on from there.
