The Toronto Maple Leafs are embarking on a new era, leaving the “Core Four” in the past, and head coach Craig Berube knows exactly what he wants it to look like.
Entering his second season at the helm, Berube wants to instill a team-first mentality into his overhauled roster, stressing that every player needs to put the club ahead of themselves.
“It’s a team game. I’ve always been team first. I’ve always believed that every guy has to put the team ahead of himself to be successful in this league. When you have that buy-in from everyone on the team, you have a greater chance of success. Take less, give more,” Berube said in an interview with TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger.
“I heard ‘Core Four’ all the time. Over the years, it was all on the Core Four. It’s not just four guys who are winning or losing games. It’s the team.”
Toronto made significant roster additions up front this season, acquiring Matias Maccelli, Dakota Joshua, and Nicolas Roy, who skated together on a line in Thursday’s exhibition loss to the Detroit Red Wings.
With one preseason game remaining and less than one week before the start of the regular season on Oct. 8 against the Montreal Canadiens, Berube expressed optimism that the new additions will add much-needed depth scoring for a club that was top-heavy for much of the past decade.
“The pickups we got in the off-season are going to help. They’re good players. We need depth scoring. I believe the guys we brought in can bring that,” Berube said of the encouraging aspects of training camp. “There’s been a lot of bodies, and that’s great to have because you need depth and you see competition.”
The Maple Leafs are 2-2-1 in the preseason, and Berube says the up-and-down play thus far is expected as the team works towards shifting its identity to a straightforward, consistent team that is tough to play against. It’s a goal, Berube says, that will take time and sacrifice.
“You battle at every camp for your identity for how you want to play. We see that in preseason games, going off page a little and not playing the direct, forechecking style of game we want to play. It’s hard to play that way. It’s a hard game, but it’s the way we need to play to be successful,” Berube said.
“We understand that there are guys out there who are highly talented and they’re going to do special things at times. But the identity of it is that we all need to look the same. We all need to play a direct game, be predictable to each other.”
The Maple Leafs are once again expected to compete for the Atlantic Division title, especially as the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers deal with significant injuries to captain Aleksander Barkov and star winger Matthew Tkachuk.
As the team looks to build off of last year’s seven-game, second-round exit against the Panthers, Berube did not want to expand on what a successful season would look like in 2025-26 and is choosing to focus solely on the remainder of training camp and starting the season strong.
“Success is defined in a lot of different ways. It’s hard to make the playoffs. It’s hard to win in the playoffs. Only one team wins it all. Making the playoffs is successful. It’s a hard league,” said Berube.
“Success is in the playoffs around here because we’ve been in the playoffs a lot and haven’t had the success we all want in Toronto. I’m not going to focus on that right now. I need to focus on getting our team down in training camp and focus on the start of the season.”
