Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on Friday, on the Toronto Maple Leafs and if there are some tough decisions that could be coming. The focus at the end of last week was head coach Craig Berube, but could it get even bigger? (The Leafs lost two more games since the interview)
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Friedman: “I don’t like to overreact to one game. I think it’s, I think it’s, it’s like one bad day. You can’t overreact to one bad day in your life, but there’s been too much of this. And I just feel that, that we’re heading into a territory where if this doesn’t turn around, they’re going to have to ask some really hard questions about themselves.
Like , the focus is on the coach. Like, you know, you look at post game last night, I’m sitting there after, Nick and I were stated for a bit and chatted. We were chatting with Amber and Jason Bukola, who will work in the the Oilers game and the Flames game. And, you know, then the quotes from Berube come across on social media, right? And you’re like, Okay, be careful. Like, sometimes the written word doesn’t come across as well as, we got to see what a guy really looks like. When you go look at the clips, it’s like, ‘Nope.’ It comes across, like, the way it came across. And so the focus today is on the coach.
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But like, I think, like, I think the questions, if they go existential, are going to be much bigger than Craig Berube. And I think we’re, if this doesn’t turn around, we’re going into some really crazy territory here.
Like I said at the end of the show last night, you know, I work in the next nine Leafs games. Like this might be their season. Like it might be, like I never thought we would have said that, but this is enormous. Here we are, we’re about to go into the new year, the year of our Lord, 2026, and we might be talking about this nine-game stretch being their season. Like, I never would have thought that we would be talking about this.
Matt Marchese: “So when we talk about where this thing could end up, like, at what point is everything on the table? And I mean everything, including, and I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but I’m going to, including trading your captain. Like, at what point is that part of this conversation, because whatever is happening here right now, it ain’t working.”
Friedman: “Well, you know, that’s not, that is not an in-season conversation. I don’t think. Like that’s when I’m talking about, Matty, stuff that is going to get bigger than anybody thought, territory that nobody considered. That’s, that’s one of the things, but we’re not talking about that now.
That’s, you know, like, and I don’t really want to get ahead of ourselves here, because this is where I get radioed, and so I’m trying to be a little bit careful. But like, if they don’t make the playoffs, imagine what kinds of questions they’ll be asking themselves at the end of the year.
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So I think that’s all part of it, right? Like, like, it’s, Justin said it, you know, last night. It’s the way that third period went. Like, it doesn’t have to be a 1980s or 70s bench-clearing brawl thing. But it was just, it was just, you can tell that a guy like Berube the way he thinks, like, how would he feel watching how quiet that third period was?”
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