Craig Berube addressed the media after the Maple Leafs’ 7-2 win over the Philadelphia Flyers, which improved the team’s record to 43-25-3.
On the team’s effort coming off a dud in Nashville:
It was a good response — a good bounce-back game right from the get-go. We played a good hockey game overall through three periods.
On another big game for the McMann-Tavares-Nylander line:
Since putting Bobby on there, it just adds so much speed and strength to the line. He is a big, strong guy who can skate. He seems like he is always on the puck. He creates battles for those guys. When they get the puck, they can obviously make plays; Johnny can score.
They have been effective for us since we put them together. I have been happy with them.
On how high Nylander could go with his goal-scoring totals:
Haha, I mean, I don’t know. It is a good question.
He has great ability. We all know that. He has a great shot. He does a lot of good things. He is very talented.
Obviously, he has been pretty consistent with goal-scoring throughout his career. He has an opportunity to surpass the 40 goals.
Tonight, the goals are one thing, but for me, he checked really well. He was on top of things. He backchecked, broke plays up, and then transitioned from defense to offense. He is so quick with his agility and his speed that he creates going the other way right away.
He was solid tonight all around.
On Bobby McMann reaching the 20-goal mark for the first time:
He quietly goes about his business. You get pretty consistent play out of him in terms of what he needs to do to be successful. He does a lot of things right every game. They go unnoticed a lot of times.
He does a really good job of pushing the D back all the time with his speed. He is very consistent at it. He skates extremely well.
He is a big, strong guy who is on top of pucks all the time. Our style of play is a lot more about putting pucks behind people and going to work. It suits him very well.
On the Laughton-Domi-Robertson line:
I liked that line tonight. They played with a lot of energy. I know they got a goal there from Max — great play — but the line had energy. They all skate and get on top of things like I want. That is what we want from them.
Laughton was physical. I thought they were good tonight, that line. The way I envisioned that line is tenacity. They can all skate, get on top of people, and make it difficult for the other team by disrupting the other team as much as they can.
They did a pretty good job tonight. Max was 65% in the faceoff circle. He was solid there.
On John Tavares’ consistent impact this season:
Everybody has off nights, but his effort and the way he plays are very consistent. Very consistent.
On Anthony Stolarz’s performance:
It wasn’t busy for him, but there were some opportunities where he had to make saves. It is never easy for a goalie when he is not seeing pucks.
He was sharp. He did what he had to do to seal the win.
On Mitch Marner’s third-period goal getting called back for goalie interference:
We looked at it a few times on the bench and weren’t sure.
It is a tough play. I don’t know what they want Mitch to do, to be honest with you.
It is probably goalie interference at the end of the day, but you never know.
