This week, Elliotte Friedman announced that the Oilers received permission to speak with Craig Berube. His time in Toronto shows why a team like Edmonton should avoid Berube.
The Oilers have received permission to speak with former Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube, per @FriedgeHNIC. pic.twitter.com/mmQa3IvYou
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— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 18, 2026
The NHL is a league devoid of new ideas when it comes to winning. With the success of the Florida Panthers in the past two postseasons, media pundits and league executives have deemed grit to be the key to their back-to-back Stanley Cup wins.
In reality, the Panthers built one of the deepest and most skilled teams in the salary cap era — a recipe that had very little to do with toughness. Now, teams are falsely equating physicality to postseason success and making managerial decisions based on that false premise.
The Maple Leafs were one of the many teams that fell for that trap after hiring Berube in the summer of 2024.
Defense wins championships — unless your team is built from the front
Berube proved to be one of the best coaches in the league after his impressive run with the St. Louis Blues in 2019, so his hiring wasn’t problematic on the surface. However, the messaging and schematic decisions by Berube were conflicting, given the roster at hand.
The Maple Leafs are a team built around elite offensive talents in Auston Matthews and William Nylander, the kind of talent Berube didn’t have during his time with the Blues. Toronto would only go as far as their best offensive players took them, but Berube refused to embrace an identity as a skilled team.
Their former Hart Memorial trophy winner, Matthews, was utilized completely differently under Berube compared to the rest of his career. Through his first eight seasons, Matthews played 35% of his ice time against elite competition, a number that jumped to 47% under Berube.
These were some of the toughest defensive minutes in the league, and a deployment that resembles a defensive third-line center rather than your best player.
Additionally, Matthews started 37.5% of his shifts in the defensive zone, compared to 12% for the rest of his career.
Both of these factors culminated in Matthews having the worst season of his career this season, with only 53 points in 60 games.
That over-commitment to a more defensive ‘playoff-style’ game screams upper level involvement, especially after years of the Toronto media preaching a lack of identity. Berube was essentially forced to turn an offense-oriented roster into a Carolina Hurricanes-esque shutdown team.
It was a failed experiment for Toronto, but the luck of a few lottery balls may help fans forget what a disappointment of a season it was.
What this means for the Oilers
After a shocking first-round exit to a young Ducks team, it’s back to the drawing board for the Oilers. Connor McDavid begins his two-year contract next season, meaning Edmonton has until 2028 to prove to him that they’re a legitimate Cup contender.
Hiring Berube could be the final straw in the McDavid era, especially if he brings the same coaching philosophies used in Toronto.
Looking at the Oilers over the last few seasons, defense hasn’t been the issue; rather, depth scoring and goaltending have prevented Edmonton from reaching its potential.
According to Natural Stat Trick, the Oilers recorded a 39% net goal share at 5-on-5 without McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the ice last season, the worst of McDavid’s career. The bottom six has fallen off a cliff since the departure of Ryan McLeod and Dylan Holloway, and the current cast isn’t exactly made up of elite defensive talents.
If Berube were to deploy McDavid or Draisaitl similarly to Matthews, the offense would take a huge hit.
Critics often point to the defense as what’s holding Edmonton back, but the underlying numbers suggest otherwise. The Oilers finished 14th in expected goals against last season, or right above league average.
The team finished with the eighth-most goals against, thanks to goaltending that was outright bad at times throughout the season. If the Oilers equate raw goals against numbers to a bad defense, they could wind up suffering the same fate as Toronto this past season.
As much as the NHL is a copycat league, general managers seem to only learn from other teams’ successes rather than their blunders. The Oilers can’t afford to waste another year of McDavid’s prime, especially with the possibility of free agency on the horizon.
