Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube has turned a January non-playoff team into a Stanley Cup winner before, so why can't he do it again?
If you surveyed 1000 hockey fans in January, 2019 and asked them who would win the Stanley Cup that year, there wouldn't have been a single person who said the St. Louis Blues, even if they were die-hard Blues fans. The team was at the bottom of the standings looking lifeless, but turned the season around going 30-10-5 from January 1st onwards, eventually leading to a championship.
Berube was the head coach of that turnaround so he should lean on that experience when it comes to Toronto because those two teams are pretty similar. If you're looking at the forward group, Ryan O'Reilly is Auston Matthews, Brayden Schenn is John Tavares, Vladimir Tarasenko is William Nylander and Matthew Knies is Jaden Schwartz, except they may actually have more skill.
The biggest difference though obviously is that the Blues defense had some size and skill with the likes of Vince Dunn, Alex Pietrangelo, Colton Parayko, Jay Bouwmeester and Joel Edmundson, which you can't really say about Toronto. Not only that, but Jordan Binnington emerged from the minors, looking ike prime Patrick Roy at times.
Leafs should be inspired by 2018-19 Blues
Obviously Toronto's defense is worse than that core in St. Louis, but a healthy Joseph Woll has shown that he can be a top goaltender in the league and go on a heater. However, the biggest worry with that is that he never stays healthy. He'll go on a two-week run and then be out for a month, but if he can find a way to play for a long stretch, he'll be the difference maker for the Leafs playofff success.
Winning is a contagious thing and Toronto has gotten into a groove over the past two weeks which should make fans excited. With points in five consecutive games, including four wins, the Leafs offense is back, thanks to their fantastic power-play percentage.
When the Blues won their Stanley Cup in 2019, Berube never started the season as their head coach, but instead came in after they fired Mike Yeo. Some of the fanbase looked at firing Berube as the solution this year, but instead they fired assistant coach Marc Savard and replaced him with Steve Sullivan, which seems like the move of the year.
Since being hired, the Leafs power-play is scoring at will and they look like the old Leafs that we all remember. That Sullivan bump and a hot-run by Woll is all this team needs to be the 2026 version of the 2019 Blues and Berube should keep telling his players that every single day, as this season is far from over.