Auston Matthews Breaks His Silence Following His Bench Altercation With Craig Berube

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Daniel Lucente
October 25, 2024 (4:01 PM)

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The Leafs suffered a big loss at the hands of the St. Louis Blues last night, and Craig Berube wasn't in a festive mood, as he ripped into captain Auston Matthews.

During the game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the St. Louis Blues, there was quite a heated exchange between head coach Craig Berube and Auston Matthews that only served to distract from the game at hand.

Down by 5-1, when the third Blues goal was counted, Berube could be seen involved in an animated argument with Matthews on the bench. The moment really begged questions about the message that Berube was trying to get across to the Maple Leafs captain. Was this a release of frustration, or was there something more to what Berube was doing with such an intense show of emotion?

Craig Berube is known to be very straightforward in his method of coaching. He will not hold back from lacing into guys, even star players like Auston Matthews. On one hand, sometimes these attacks wake up players and get them to raise their games in big moments.

That could spur an element of urgency in Matthews, who will then take ownership and try to prevent further defensive breakdowns. After all, Matthews is one of the leaders of this team, and perhaps coaches like Berube think a little tough love is what he needs to sharpen his focus at those moments but it seems all has smoothed over with the two.

"It's just accountability to everybody... It's nothing personal."

There's a possible dark side, too, to Craig Berube's aggressiveness. For a player as skilled and composed as Auston Matthews, who leads more by example than by heated passion, such an in-your-face tactic might be counterproductive. If it's not presented well, the pressure could be put on Matthews and hurt his confidence or affect team chemistry. Not everyone responds well to hard-nosed coaching, and this sort of public call-out could very well create tension rather than cure what ails.

"I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's hockey. You get yelled at sometimes. Coach yells. You just kind of take it as it goes," Matthews said. "I don't know. There's obviously an impact. We obviously all respect him and his presence and everything on the bench. Yeah, so it's not anything you take personally."

Postgame, and in the day after the game, Auston Matthews was relatively quiet on the matter, offering little initial comment and speaking on the situation the next day. His measured response may suggest that he understood where Craig Berube was coming from, even if those types of things aren't exactly his cup of tea when it comes to being critiqued.

The always-chatty Mitch Marner, lined up next to Matthews often on the ice, was also understanding of Berube's perspective. It would suggest that the Leafs are prepared to take this altercation on the chin, as it were, heading into tough matchups with the Boston Bruins and Winnipeg Jets.

"I mean, you're pissed off if you're on the ice against a goal. So, you're already pissed off," Marner said. "We need to be more direct with that puck. We need to be better with it. We've got to be at the five as a unit, and, you know, you expect it when you get back it wasn't the prettiest of plays out of the five guys on the ice."

Craig Berube's hard-nosed approach might become the reason for the overall change in Auston Matthews' game, but it does have the tendency to push the star player further away if it becomes too much. That is a rather delicate tightrope to walk: calling out athletes to be more intense without having that turn into a cancer within the locker room dynamic. Because of this strategy going down the stretch run, it will be really interesting to see how things pan out for Matthews, Berube and the Leafs.