Craig Berube addressed the media after his team’s 6-1 loss to the Utah Mammoth, which dropped the Maple Leafs’ record to 23-16-7.
On whether the schedule caught up to the team:
Well, there is no excuse. They had a lot of energy and jump out there. They were quicker than us tonight, and it showed.
They pounced early. I thought we got out of the first down 1-0 and in good shape. We came out in the second, and JT had a breakaway right away. He didn’t put it in. We had some opportunities early on. We got our legs under us.
The second goal went in, and the third one really dug us into a hole.
On Denns Hildeby’s performance in goal (34 saves on 40 shots):
I guess you’d want the second one back, but I don’t put anything on him. This is a team loss. We’re all accountable for it. We have to be better. We weren’t good enough.
On whether this is a loss the coaching staff will “flush” or dissect:
This is a flush game, for me. We just didn’t execute well enough. It was kind of like we were “almost” (there) — we almost got a goal, we almost got the payoff, but we just didn’t execute well enough.
I’ll give them credit. They had a great game plan. They were on us. We didn’t have much room out there. We really had to work for any opportunity we got. They were tight defensively, and they were quick offensively. They made us chase it around.
On the value of a rest day on Wednesday:
I talked to the guys. We need to rest up. We are going to have a tough game in Vegas, who are good at home. That is a good team. We need to rest up here and get our legs under us for the next game.
