The Toronto Maple Leafs delivered one of their textbook roller coaster efforts in what ended up being a 3-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night.

After stumbling their way through most of the game after giving up a shorthanded goal in the first period and struggling to generate much offence at all, the Leafs scored two goals in eight seconds late in the third period to give themselves the lead and eventually the win over the Blackhawks. Despite this, their effort early in the game left a lot to be desired, which Craig Berube commented on following the game.

“There’s momentum shifts in the game, right? You don’t need to break. You can bend. But the mistakes, the two or three mistakes you make early on in the game, that’s what upsets you. There’s no need for it.”

The Maple Leafs could have been down 3-0 coming out of the first period had a goal not been disallowed. Craig Berube was seen screaming up at his bench during the review, and again later on in the game. When asked what it was that set him off, he said he couldn’t land on only one thing.

“Giving up a shorthanded goal and giving up a face-off goal, these things shouldn’t happen. You know, we get muscled around our net, it’s just simple things. That’s why I was pissed off.”

Head coach Craig Berube called out the team’s leaders following the Maple Leafs’ 6-3 loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday, so there was a lot of pressure for captain Auston Matthews to show up and make a statement. It didn’t look like that was going to happen for a while, but he ultimately assisted on the first goal of the game before tying it at the end, and Berube made sure to give him and his line credit where it was due.

“It was great,” Berube said about the power play goal. “It was great to see, great for him, great for our team. Like I said, I thought that line drove play tonight, which is what I wanted to see. Whether they scored or not, just control the game more than they have and drive play. And they did. I thought all three of them were pretty good tonight.”

The Maple Leafs will look to catch the perhaps undeserved momentum in a bottle and use it to start stockpiling points as they approach Christmas.

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