The Toronto Maple Leafs have been in rough shape since the start of the season. Sure, the goals are arriving from the likes of captain Auston Matthews and William Nylander, but the team's defense has been shoddy at best. It's hard to win games without solid defensive effort. Their recent stretch to the 2025-26 season has seen them hit a five-game losing streak.
With a team as high profile as the Leafs, all attention shifts to the head coach — Craig Berube. The head coach was just brought in last year, and with the team's struggles, his seat has only gotten hotter from fans and hockey analysts.
During an appearance on Sportsnet, NHL insider Frank Seravalli made a case for the Leafs to keep Berube around despite their struggles. Seravalli says that the team firing Berube would let the Leafs' core of veteran players "off the hook."
Frank Seravalli urges Leafs to not let players 'off the hook'
"Now that they're going through a malaise one year later with still the veteran core of this team, I think to make a coaching change at this juncture in time would be a mistake to let this core of players off the hook for the way they started the season and frankly for the lack of intensity that they've had," said Seravalli. "That hasn't been a change from the coaching staff. That's what stands out to me as the Leafs tried to grind through this. It hasn't just been the injuries. It's been the lack of consistency which has come from the lack of work ethic and effort."
The Leafs' effort and work ethic has come under fire early on this season. There was the incident earlier this season where goalie Anthony Stolarz called out his team for the way they all played in a 4-3 loss to the Seattle Kraken From not playing well enough on defense, to not giving the opposing goalie and tough shots in the offensive zone, to not attacking the crease.
Then, there was as recently as Monday, where Berube laid into the Leafs for their effort in practice, which featured more than a couple of swear words.
On Tuesday, Leafs general manager Brad Treliving met with reporters, where he defended Berube and expressed that he is still the man for the job.
“Craig didn’t become a bad coach overnight, when you go through difficult times the easy thing is to pick off the coach… the important thing is to not point fingers and dig in together… I have all the faith in the world in him," said Treliving, h/t Sportsnet's Anna Dua.
The Leafs thrive as a goal-scoring team, as their 3.53 goals for average is the fourth-most in the NHL as of this writing. That's the main positive for the Maple Leafs. But, they have allowed 3.79 goals per game, ranking second-highest in the league behind the St. Louis Blues. On the powerplay, the Leafs are surprisingly ineffective, converting on just 16 percent of opportunities, ranking seventh-worst in the league.
The Leafs are only one month into the season, so there is still plenty of time for them to turn things around. Seravalli urged the Leafs not to give up on Berube just yet, and Treliving responded in kind by giving him an endorsement on Tuesday.