The holiday schedule freeze does not apply to Craig Berube

Auston Matthews and William Nylander were invisible. Neither player had a shot on goal at 5-on-5, and the five power-play opportunities the team had were determined by slow, predictable entries that were routinely hit on the blue line. Berube tried several mid-game adjustments, but none worked. He was tasked with turning a high-octane offense into a group capable of winning games in the playoffs. Instead, the Maple Leafs look disconnected both on and off the ice, playing without any discernible structure as the team’s franchise players are routinely outplayed game-by-game.

So what explains the dysfunction?

“Ask those guys, not me,” Berube replied to the traveling press.

Matthews, for what it’s worth, didn’t do much better.

“We just made it really easy for them. The neutral zone was a highway that they had to go through. I don’t know. We just made it so easy for them,” Matthews said.

“That has to be the main focus every night. Like, we don’t have to be the best team in the world every night. But we need everyone to compete. We need everyone to just play well.”

Matthews seems intent on settling for “pretty good” as the Maple Leafs come nowhere near that standard, being outplayed in quick succession by Macklin Celebrini, Connor McDavid, Jason Dickinson and Aliaksei Protas. The blame lies primarily with the star players, but it’s also Berube’s job to get the most out of the team, and the Leafs are performing well below the sum of their parts.

There was a prevailing idea that Berube would bring about steadfastness and responsibility, and while his upbeat attitude is often appreciated, he looked nothing like the taskmaster who would instigate change. Berube is often too reluctant to make changes: Max Domi stays in the lineup forever, while Matias Maccelli, for example, hasn’t played since December. Some will point to the idea that the Maple Leafs have progressed further than ever before during the Matthews era with Berube behind the bench, but the disconnect is clearly visible.