Head coach Craig Berube addressed the media after the Maple Leafs’ 6-2 victory over the Senators in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinal playoff series.
On the physicality of his team in Game 1:
We were physical in the first period, I thought, and they were, too. It is physical hockey, and it is going to be physical. We did a good job of controlling our emotions and playing through it. You have to.
As I said, it was going to be a battle, and it was.
On his top players breaking through with a goal from Mitch Marner, assisted by Auston Matthews, early in the night:
They just played. We talked about the intensity ramping up in playoffs and all of this other stuff, but you just have to go play. They did that.
They played a solid hockey game. They went against the Stutzle line most of the night, and I thought they did a good job.
Our special teams were good. We didn’t have to kill a lot of penalties. We were pretty disciplined. The power play was obviously very good tonight, and those guys did a good job.
On the team’s three-for-six night on the power play:
The power play has been rolling for a while. For me, it is about getting pucks to the net with numbers at the net. I can’t say enough about Matthew Knies and JT in those areas. They have done an extremely good job with all of their work in the interior of the ice.
On Anthony Stolarz’s impressive performance in his first-ever playoff start:
He had to make some huge saves in the second period after we had the 5-on-3. They had three really good opportunities after that when it became 5-on-5. He made big saves.
Timely saves are huge. We all know that, especially in playoffs. They go a long way.
He made some timely saves that were really important to keep it where it was at and keep the momentum going. He was huge in that moment, for sure.
I thought he was solid. Very solid tonight.
On the team’s ability to draw so many penalties, and if their edge in experience over the opposition was showing through:
Penalties are penalties. We were disciplined. We are going to keep being disciplined. We are going to keep playing hard between the whistles the right way and keep being physical, but we are not going to get involved in all of the antics after the whistles.
The refs call games. They call penalties for whatever reason. I thought we checked well with our feet and our sticks tonight. We were hard at our net. We were doing things right to stay out of the box.
You put yourself in the penalty box when you get on the wrong side of things and end up in desperate situations. We were pretty clean overall with our physical part of the game. We have to keep doing that.
On the team scoring six goals via six different goal scorers:
It is great. I think we have done that all year. If you look at the production up and down our lineup, it is pretty spread out, for the most part.
We need everybody. We talked about that before the series. Everybody needs to contribute at some point and in some way. You need guys to put pucks in the net who normally don’t do it in the playoffs. That is big.
A lot of the time, your top players are going to check and get checked. You are not going to get a lot of opportunities a lot of the time. You need other people to step up and do the job. We did a good job of it tonight.
Listen, it is one game. It is going to get harder. We all know that.
On the Ridly Greig cross-check on John Tavares getting reduced from a major to a minor:
That is not my call. It’s not my call.
I mean, the referees and the league will look at things and make the calls we make. We are not going to focus on that. We are going to focus on what we need to do for the next game.
I thought they made some attempts at our goalie sliding into him and things like that, but it is not for us to worry about. We have to focus on playing. We have to focus on ourselves and what we need to do.
The league will look at that stuff.
Ridly Greig assessed a major for this cross-check, but then reduced to a minor after review
pic.twitter.com/debcUTkGXF— Spittin' Chiclets (@spittinchiclets) April 21, 2025
