Craig Berube is downplaying possible disagreements with one of his star players.
Talking about Leafs Morning Take The former head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs said Wednesday that any tension he has with forward William Nylander is part of business.
“I loved working with Willie. I mean, look, you have to have difficult conversations with him. There are always things that come up and you have to argue with him about things because he is a special player, he has a special talent,” Berube said. “He wants to do things a certain way and I want things to be done a certain way, so there’s always a little bit of a backlash from him anyway.
“In general, our relationship was good. I know there was a lot of stuff we did with him, but that’s part of hockey. And that suited both of us. The next day we moved away from it.”
In two seasons at Berube, Nylander has 75 goals and 163 points in 147 games, including a career-high 45 goals in 2024-25.
“I have no hard feelings toward Willie,” Berube continued. “I loved coaching him. These guys are special players, it takes work and you have to try to change them a little – you can’t change them completely. He’s been playing like this for 10 years, so he’s not going to change his whole game. He’s been pretty good at what he’s done. Overall, I liked it.”
The veteran coach was fired as the Maple Leafs moved into the John Chayka and Mats Sundin era. He led Toronto to its second playoff series win in three years during his first season behind the bench, but followed it up with its first post-season miss in nine years.
Despite his departure, Berube fondly remembers the opportunity to work with the top-tier talent that made up the Maple Leafs roster.
“Overall I would say it’s great. I mean, I had no problem managing these guys or working with them… They came to work every day, worked in the gym, worked in practice,” Berube added.
“There were no particular difficulties in managing the players. Maybe there should have been more, maybe I would have liked there to have been more backlash or something on their part to try to steer things in the right direction. Overall they were a pleasure to work with.”
On his future, Berube said he would like to return to the NHL bench.
“I’ll see what happens, hopefully at some point I’ll get a call to come back to the game and get into coaching,” said Berube, who was interviewed by the Oilers but ultimately withdrew his name from consideration. “I still have a lot left and I’m ready to get back to it.”