Toronto Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube isn’t happy with his team’s effort in the preseason games.
The Maple Leafs suffered a 4-2 home preseason loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday. It was a disappointing result, and Berube was frustrated with his team’s effort.
“I liked their 6 on 5s”, Berube said after the loss. “It’s one of those preseason games. I thought Montreal worked hard. You know, they played simple game, and we kind of complicated things at times. That’s what you get sometimes in preseason games.”
Berube, meanwhile, believes preseason games can be frustrating as players don’t want to get hurt. But the Maple Leafs coach still wants more effort from his team in the outing.
“They are, yeah, because it lacks intensity, I think, more than anything,” Berube added. “And that can drive a coach bananas. But I understand. There was some good stuff, too. I was happy with some of the stuff, I look for structure stuff. I look for routes and just things like that that go on in the game, our systems.”
The Maple Leafs have two more preseason games before the regular season starts on Oct. 8 against the Canadiens.
Maple Leafs Coach Wants Team to Play More Direct
As the regular season looms, Berube does want to see more from his Maple Leafs team.
Berube says he wants the team to be more direct. He also wants the team to focus on shooting and not trying to get too fancy on the ice.
“We want to look like we did last year,” Berube told reporters following the loss. “We’re a direct team, we want to play good defense, we want to check, make sure we’re defensively sound, give our goalies good looks to make saves…
“Offensively, we want to be direct,” Berube added. “We want to get to shoot pucks, we want to get to the net, score some dirty looks. I don’t see a whole lot changing. I think we are still lacking playing direct through the neutral zone, getting behind people to go to work. You gotta keep working on that, we’ve been working on it in practice.”
Berube has two more preseason games and multiple practices to hopefully implement that before the Maple Leafs’ season starts.
Anthony Stolarz Confident in Defense
With Joseph Woll away from the team, Anthony Stolarz will be the Maple Leafs’ starting goalie.
Stolarz is confident he will be able to remain healthy this season. He also expects to continue his success from last season, in large part due to the defensive unit in front of him.
“Obviously, preseason is all about getting your reps in, getting familiar with the D again,” Stolarz said. “Thought my puck touches were really good tonight, and the guys did a really good job of communicating with me. So just getting back on the same page was really nice…
“I think it’s huge having that familiarity with each other,” Stolarz added. “Just knowing what each guy likes, you know, how they pick it up, where they like the puck. We put a lot of emphasis on that this training camp, so it was good to see the results tonight.”
Stolarz is entering the final year of his two-year, $5 million deal.
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post Maple Leafs Coach Calls Out Team as Season Looms appeared first on Heavy Sports.