NHL Rumors: How big will the questions get for the Toronto Maple Leafs?

Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on Friday, on the Toronto Maple Leafs and whether some tough decisions are coming. The focus was on head coach Craig Berube at the end of last week, but can it be bigger? (The Leafs have lost two more games since the interview)

** NHLRumors.com transcription

Friedman: “I don’t like to overreact to one game. I think it’s, I think it’s, it’s like a bad day. You can’t overreact to a bad day in your life, but there’s been too many of them. And I just feel like we’re entering an area where if this doesn’t change, they’re going to have to ask some really hard questions about themselves.”

For example, the focus is on the coach. Like, you know, if you watch the post-game last night, I’m sitting there afterward, Nick and I were recorded for a while and talked. We were chatting with Amber and Jason Bukola, who will be working the Oilers game and the Flames game. And you know, then you come across Berube’s quotes on social media, right? And you say, okay, be careful. Sometimes the written word doesn’t come across very well, and we need to see what a man really looks like. When you start watching the clips you’re like, ‘No.’ It comes across as it came across. And so the focus today is on the coach.

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But I think the questions, if they become existential, will be much bigger than Craig Berube’s. And I think if this doesn’t change, we’re going to be in some really crazy territory.

Like I said at the end of the show last night, you know, I’m working the next nine Leafs games. As if this could be their season. Like it could be, like I never thought we would have said that, but this is huge. Here we are, about to enter the new year, the year of our Lord, 2026, and maybe we’re talking about this nine-game stretch being their season. I never thought we’d be talking about this.

Matt Marchese: “So in terms of where this thing could end up, at what point is everything on the table? And I mean everything, including, and I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but I’m going to, including trading your captain. Like, at what point is that part of this conversation, because whatever’s happening here right now isn’t working.”

Friedman: “Well, you know, that’s not, that’s not a conversation before the season. I don’t think so. That’s when I talk about, Matty, things that are going to be bigger than anyone thought, an area that no one thought about. That’s one of the things, but we’re not talking about that right now.

That’s, you know, and I don’t really want to get ahead of myself here, because here I get radio broadcasts, and so I’m trying to be a little bit careful. But imagine the questions they’ll ask themselves at the end of the year if they don’t make the playoffs.

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So I guess that’s all part of it, right? So, it’s like, Justin said it last night, you know. This is how the third period went. For example, it doesn’t have to be a brawl from the 80s or 70s. But it was just, it was just, you can see with a guy like Berube how he thinks, how would he feel if he saw how quiet that third period was?

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