Maple Leafs' penalty penchant pestering coach Craig Berube

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If the glass is half-full, Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube can glance at his team’s work on the penalty kill and be relatively pleased with it.

When it’s half-empty, it’s the amount of penalties that the Leafs have taken that stick in Berube’s craw.

Before National Hockey League games on Wednesday, the Leafs were 13th on the kill at 80.5%. That’s a nice improvement over 2023-24, when they finished 23rd at 76.9%.

But the Leafs were shorthanded through their first 10 games no less than 41 times, fewer than only Los Angeles (43), Boston (45) and San Jose (49) across the NHL.

How does Berube coach discipline?

“It’s addressed,” Berube said. “You can sit guys shifts, which I have, there’s lots of things.

“The penalties aren’t from a guy going off page and going to take a penalty. It’s managing being aggressive with your stick and doing things right. I get there’s penalties that are not important, but you can deal with it when there’s a scoring opportunity and somebody has to make a desperate play, he maybe has to take a penalty.

“But we’ve taken, I think, three, maybe four penalties in the offensive zone. Those are the ones that bother me the most. They’re 200 feet from our net. We’ve got to be smarter than that.

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“In the third period, we took one in Boston (on Saturday) in the offensive zone. In Winnipeg (on Monday), we took (one) in the third. Really, they weren’t necessary. There was no danger anywhere. We just have to be better. You have to do something if they keep doing it.”

Max Domi has taken six minors, most among Leafs, followed by Simon Benoit and Oliver Ekman-Larsson with five each. The cleanest Leafs have been captain Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and Steven Lorentz. They’re the only three Toronto skaters who played in all of the first 10 games and were not penalized.

tkoshan@postmedia.com

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