Former Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube is standing by his dump-and-chase approach, and Matthew Knies now plays for a coach who sounds very different.
"I had an identity going in there, and I wanted to play a more north-south game and put pucks behind teams and forecheck," Berube said on FirstUp 1050.
"I believe that is the way to win in this game. You look at Carolina and Florida, and even when we won in 2019, we didn't turn pucks over."
"I get it, I wasn't trying to take their sticks out of their hands, but it's the way it goes," he added.
"I got no issue with players saying if they felt like they had to dump every puck in. That's fine."
His comments came after wingers on last season's roster admitted he told them to "dump the puck in" and that they worried about paying a price for creative plays, according to @dfotoronto.
So who's right?
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Craig Berube sends strong message after Maple Leafs coaching controversy
Berube has a point about Carolina. The Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup in June.
Jim Hiller, hired in June, has rarely talked about north-south hockey so far, a big shift from the past two seasons.
Both things can be true. Forechecking wins in the spring, but telling a skilled roster to chip every puck in wastes the players the Leafs pay to create.
Knies put up 66 points last season but finished minus-30.
The season before, he scored a career-high 29 goals playing for Berube.
The Leafs also pay Auston Matthews $13,250,000 and William Nylander $11,500,000.
Knies is locked in at $7,750,000 through 2030-31.
It's like a chef insisting everyone order the steak. The steak is great, but you hired a kitchen full of people who can cook other things.
The Leafs finished the preseason 2-1-1 and host the Canadiens on Tuesday to open the regular season.
Berube says he's fine with the criticism. Hiller's Leafs now get to prove whether the other way works better, starting Tuesday night.
Was Craig Berube right to make the Leafs play dump-and-chase hockey?
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