Is Craig Berube Still the Right Coach for Auston Matthews?
At this moment in Toronto, the conversation stops being about systems and starts being about coaches and star players. And right now, that conversation circles back to Craig Berube and Auston Matthews. Berube hasn’t moved on yet, and that’s not shocking. In Toronto, big decisions like that don’t seem to happen quickly. They tend to climb the ladder — management, hockey ops, ownership, all of it. So for now, he’s still the guy behind the bench.
Is Berube the right coach for Matthews?
But the real question isn’t whether Berube stays for the sake of staying. It’s whether Auston Matthews is actually getting the best version of himself under this setup. Because if you look at the numbers, there’s a noticeable drop. Under Berube, Matthews has still been a very good player. But he “only” has 60 goals in 127 games. While that’s nothing to sneeze at, it’s not the same explosive version we saw under Sheldon Keefe. That year, he hit 69 goals in a single season and looked like he could score from anywhere, anytime.
That’s the bottom line. Matthews and William Nylander both looked more dangerous in a system that leaned into puck possession, creativity, and sustained offensive zone time. That was the Keefe style — less structure, more flow. Players like Matthews thrive when they’re allowed to attack with rhythm, not constantly reset into heavier, grind-it-out shifts.
Berube’s coaching style is more direct.
Berube’s approach is different. More direct. More north-south. More about checking, structure, and grinding games down. And while that absolutely has value in the playoffs, it can also take a bit of the edge off elite offensive creativity over an 82-game season. There have also been more injuries. Could that be a fallout of coaching style?
You see it in little ways — fewer extended offensive zone shifts, less of that “wave after wave” pressure that made Matthews feel inevitable at times. So the real issue isn’t whether Berube is a “bad coach.” That’s too simple.
The question is fit. Does this style maximize your best player, or does it pull him into a version of the game that doesn’t fully unlock what he does best?
When you have an elite player like Matthews, you build the team around him.
Because when your best player is Auston Matthews, you’re not trying to make him fit the system. You’re supposed to build the system around him. That’s why this conversation keeps coming up. Not because everything is broken. Instead, it’s because you can still see a higher gear that maybe isn’t being fully tapped into right now.
And in Toronto, that’s usually where coaching debates start… and eventually decide everything.