The Toronto Maple Leafs have hired Craig Berube to be their new head coach, replacing the fired Sheldon Keefe.

Berube was previously the head coach of the St. Louis Blues, where he took over as head coach partway through the 2018-19 season and guided the team from the bottom of the standings to a Stanley Cup. Berube coached the Blues until this past season, when he was replaced by Drew Bannister during the season. Previous to his time in St. Louis, Berube was the head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers for two seasons.

The Leafs are hoping that Berube's Stanley Cup resume and blue-collar coaching style will lead to better playoff results. Although the Leafs have participated in some form of playoff series every season since 2016-17 (eight seasons), they have won a series only once during that span (last season against Tampa Bay). That being said, Keefe had the highest regular-season winning percentage of any coach in Leafs history, which Berube will be in tough to match.

Because he is coaching in the media market that is Toronto, Berube's coaching methods and results will be more heavily scrutinized than they were in St. Louis. The downward trend of results during his time in St. Louis had much to do with losses to key players such as Alex Pietrangelo, Ryan O'Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko, and David Perron. Those player departures had a negative impact on the power play in particular, which was top-5 for his first few seasons but second-last in the league when Berube was let go. Jordan Binnington, who was the key addition in the Stanley Cup season, also saw his numbers decline during the Berube tenure.

From a fantasy perspective, the Berube hiring shouldn't change a lot in terms of projections from players on the current roster. Major player transactions are more likely to do that. Yet it's possible that the Leafs run it back with the same core to find out who sinks and who swims under Berube. Or GM Brad Treliving could make further moves to form a roster that better fits with Berube's coaching philosophy. Mitch Marner, who does not have the reputation of being a strong playoff player despite some decent playoff scoring results (50 PTS in 57 GP), may no longer fit into the Leafs’ plans. Marner has contributed at least 25 power-play points in each of his last three seasons, so a trade out of Toronto could hurt the power-play results of the likes of Auston Matthews, William Nylander, John Tavares, and Morgan Rielly.

The fact is that Berube alone isn't simply the missing piece that will lead the Leafs to that long-awaited Stanley Cup. Personnel improvements on defense and in goal will be necessary, and that will be up to Treliving. Yet Berube's demanding nature and focus on winning battles could make the Leafs a more difficult team to play against, so don't be surprised to see at least a short-term new-coach bump from certain players.  

To read opinions and weigh in on the Berube hire, please go to this thread on the Forum.