Coach Berube has busy spring and summer in reshaping Leafs

What’s on Craig’s list?

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No, not the well-known advertising/jobs website. We mean the to-do list for new Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube.

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He’s busy looking to add and subtract in the coming days and weeks as he gets up to speed on his surroundings.

If he’s to change the DNA of a team that’s been just about DOA every playoff year, it will require not just a better personal connection, as was mentioned often at his debut news conference on Tuesday, but some changes on the roster and likely the staff.

Before signing on, Berube would have been given some leeway in keeping or discarding his assistants. Perhaps the team’s lengthy masthead, gradually assembled in the Kyle Dubas years as the former general manager explored new frontiers, will be utilized differently.

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To be reconciled by Berube are some of the following:

MISSION MITCH MARNER

Marner’s upcoming contract renewal is GM Brad Treliving’s portfolio for now, with five weeks to go before the team and its all-star right winger can get serious about extension talks.

We’ve all heard the jokes and seen the playful memes about a panicked Marner waiving his no-trade clause and fleeing town in fear of being brow-beaten by Berube. But Marner would hardly be the first offensive star that this coach convinced to change his ways.

Marner is already a very good defensive forward who can kill penalties, which Berube made a hallmark of the Blues. True, Marner isn’t a “heavy” player, but we’re thinking he’d like to at least try to make things work in his beloved hometown to prove his doubters wrong.

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In past coaching overhauls that involved Pat Burns and Pat Quinn, the Leafs who were considered unfit for their domineering bench style actually thrived.

But it starts with the difficulties of working out Marner’s financial security. Early indications are he has not applied for a transfer. You can put John Tavares in this space as well, as his contract is almost up, but there’s nothing to question about the captain’s commitment while he’s here.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Blues insiders say Berube did not totally delegate all the power-play and penalty-killing duties, indeed taking a very active role. But in keeping with his theme of two-way trust and accountability, he’ll lean on coaches and players to find the solution without him micro-managing. Whatever the flow chart looks like, the Leafs’ 4.8% playoff power play was an embarrassment. All those promises to do better and that all it would take was a puck or two to fall the right way began to ring hollow. It’s a stunner how the kind of firepower they possess couldn’t replicate at least some of its regular-season success.

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Help could be on the way via Marc Savard. A player and most recently an assistant with Treliving’s old team, the Calgary Flames, the club announced they had mutually parted ways on Wednesday. Savard handled the club’s power play under head coach Ryan Huska and has a history with Berube.

The penalty-killing also disappointed, well down the list at 76.9% in the regular season, worse in the early stages of the post-season loss to Boston, and seemingly an issue in the crux of every playoff year.

ASSISTANT COACHES

Berube will almost certainly be reunited with Cup-winning lieutenant Mike van Ryn, who preceded him to Toronto, and it’s obvious the latter’s opinion was sought when Treliving and club president Brendan Shanahan said they spoke to people who’d worked with Berube before deciding he was their man.

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Guy Boucher will likely be in for a tougher job review, based on the power-play woes. If it’s Savard, he’d also have to improve on a unit that was working at just a 17.9% clip last year, but was an assistant on the 2019-20 Blues’ staff. Steve Ott, Berube’s other assistant with the Blues in the 2019 Cup year, is happy in St. Louis and retains some head-coaching aspirations down the road.

Berube and Ott didn’t exactly have a lights-out power play post-Cup the past two years with the Blues, with bottom-10 finishes in the league. That was in large part because David Perron’s one-timer and the physical bulk of Ryan O’Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko were no longer around, and the championship roster was broken up.

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NO MIXED MESSAGES

Marner won’t be the only one who could see a redefined role. But most Berube watchers don’t think it’s fair to say he restricts the creativity of skilled forwards.

That likely came up in his conversations the past few days with those Leafs who contacted him or vice versa, exchanges that Berube spoke so positively about on Tuesday. Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou have been brought up as examples of players Berube was able to improve by generating more chances for them off the rush.

William Nylander was on his way to perfecting that part of his playoff game before being sidelined, while Auston Matthews was a finalist for the Selke Trophy, in addition to scoring a league-best 69 goals. With the finish those two and Marner are capable of, the Leafs could create a two-way, two-headed monster under Berube.

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ORIENTING THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE

Berube has played and coached in two markets, Philadelphia and St. Louis, where there are highly knowledgeable, passionate fans.

But Toronto will feature 10 times that attention, especially with the curiosity factor of a new coach and this summer’s roster uncertainty by the time camp opens. Berube said Tuesday he’s quite prepared for the spotlight, and hearing all about the 57-year Cup jinx. He understands it’s part of the allure — and the aggravation — of taking this job.

Rather than get swarmed as an in-season replacement for Sheldon Keefe, he can now use this hiatus to adjust, set practice policy and get to know everyone from the strength coach to the scouts, who are having pro and amateur meetings with Treliving in town this week ahead of the June draft.

There will be time enough to deal with double the media he’s used to at practice, a full press box, perhaps featuring the Blues’ single travelling reporter when St. Louis is in town.

Berube’s first on-ice sessions are still four months away , the much-anticipated playoffs another seven after that. There’s plenty of runway to complete a full check list.

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X: @ sunhornby

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