Last year, the Toronto Maple Leafs had their most successful season in the "Auston Matthews era".
While they've had stronger regular seasons, their 108 points last year was enough to finally earn them the Atlantic Division title. The Leafs followed that up with a first-round victory over the Ottawa Senators before falling in round two in seven games to the eventual Stanley Cup Champions, the Florida Panthers.
Losing in the second round shouldn't be the standard the Leafs are shooting for every year, but it was something, and coach Craig Berube was able to give the team their best run in only his first year behind the bench.
With the 2025-26 season off to a terrible start, can Craig Berube turn this team around and lead them to a cup?
Can Craig Berube actually be the coach that brings the Stanley Cup to Toronto?
Wednesday night's win could be a step in the right direction, and it was a very Berube-esque Leafs victory. Strong goaltending? Check. Getting outshot? Check. Winning the game on a few late goals when all hoped seemed lost? Check.
The Leafs win from Wednesday night could be the turning point of the season, but Craig Berube needs to do a lot more than scrape this team into the playoffs with a bunch of overtime wins, which they're still a long ways away from.
Berube is of course known for his mid-season turn around of the 2018-19 St. Louis Blues, who were a strong team who found themselves in last place in the early parts of the season. Berube came in as Blues interim head coach in November of that season, eventually leading them into the playoffs and eventually, the Stanley Cup.
Leafs nation is praying he can do the same for the Leafs this season.
From my own observations, Berube's coaching has brought this Leafs team much more mental toughness, allowing them to maintain leads a lot stronger and pull off comebacks that seemed impossible when Sheldon Keefe was behind the bench.
On the flip side, Berube's Leafs team seems to get outshot, and often outplayed on a nightly basis. It's tough to really say which coach was "better", as Keefe brought stronger regular season results, but Berube gave the Leafs their deepest playoff run since 2002.
Unless Berube can turn this season around and lead this team to round 3 (at minimum), I would let him go at the end of the season and hire former Dallas Stars coach, Peter DeBoer.
DeBoer has a boatload of experience coaching and winning at different levels of hockey, with a Memorial Cup, World Junior Gold, Four Nations Gold, and a CHL Coach of the Year award.
The only thing missing for DeBoer is a Stanley Cup, but he does have two trips to the finals, along with a whopping eight trips to the conference finals.
If it's not Berube, DeBoer would be a guy I look at going forward as an option to coach this team. Either way, Craig Berube has his work cut out for him if he wants to keep his job.