Craig Berube addressed the media after the Maple Leafs’ 5-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights, which dropped the team’s record to 38-21-3.
On his takeaways from the lopsided loss:
I think our intentions were right in the first period. We had chances. We were skating, I thought. But you can’t give a team like that five odd-man rushes in the first period and think you are going to win the game. That is really what I take out of it.
You have to have better structure. The guys have to reload harder. You can’t give up odd-man rushes as we did in the first period. It cost us the hockey game.
On the decision to pull Joseph Woll after the 3-0 goal:
It’s just a little wake-up call for the team.
On Woll’s performance before the pull:
Well, I mean… If you asked him, he probably wanted the first two goals back. Eichel’s shot is a pretty good shot. It is a ripper into the top shelf. I don’t know what he can do on that one.
On whether the schedule was weighing on the team:
I don’t think so. That’s an excuse.
We had good jump in the first period. I liked a lot of things. We were shooting pucks. We were getting recoveries. We were getting offensive-zone time. We were getting chances.
When they get the puck, we have to be better. We have to check better.
On the decision to start the second power-play unit for the power play later in the second period:
We were just sloppy on the previous power play. We gave up an odd-man rush. We gave up a breakaway on it. We started the other unit.
On Matthew Knies dropping the gloves with Zach Whitecloud off the opening faceoff:
Going back to that hit, he wanted some redemption. I give him a lot of credit for doing that. Get it out of the way, and go play hockey.
KNIES VS WHITECLOUD courtesy of @Bonsie1951 and @Jim_Ralph pic.twitter.com/XEEiOa8vYm
— Maple Leafs Hotstove (@LeafsNews) March 6, 2025
On the line shuffling in the third period, and if he was looking to evaluate particular combinations:
Not necessarily. You are just trying to get something going to mix it up and see if something (happens). If you get one and then another, you’re back in the game. I was just mixing it up; I was not trying to really look for any combinations that might work. That is not what the intention was.
On whether the goaltender interference challenge on the 5-0 goal was a “hail mary” attempt:
Pretty much. It was a 50-50. We thought the puck was underneath him. We thought if we could keep it at 4-0, it gives us a better chance.
Auston Matthews: “Maybe we were hoping for an easy game”
What allowed Vegas to jump out to the big lead?
Matthews: We were pretty flat at the start. That is a good team over there. They’re the standard of the league. I just don’t think we came out ready to play. Maybe we were hoping for an easy game.
They are a good team. All four lines play similarly. They compete and don’t make it easy on you. It’s on us. It’s a big wake-up call for us. With the slide here, we just have to regroup and be better on Saturday.
Mitch Marner: “It’s a wake-up call”
Do you think the schedule caught up with you guys at all?
Marner: I don’t know. I mean, that’s a tough excuse to use. Yeah, the last couple games really haven’t been great by us. I thought our goalies have kept us in it a lot of times. It’s a wake-up call.
John Tavares: “It is a big challenge for the group, and we didn’t come close to it… It starts with the leaders and myself”
What went wrong for the group?
Tavares: It’s disappointing. It is a big challenge for the group, and we didn’t come close to it. It starts with the leaders and myself. We have to do a better job of being at the level we need to be and the level of detail and execution we need to have. We were too loose. That is a really good hockey team.
It is a little bit of a wake-up call for us. We have to be a lot better. We know the challenge a team like that presents. We have to be a lot better than we were today.
