Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube set the record straight on the lineup mishap that occurred at the start of Monday’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks.

The starting lineup was intended to have Fraser Minten centring Steven Lorentz and Nick Robertson, but an error saw Auston Matthews listed down the middle instead which was reflected in the official lineup card and was announced at Scotiabank Arena. The coaching staff quickly caught the mistake moments before the opening faceoff and quickly sent Matthews out to abide by the rules.

When reporters after the game asked what went wrong, Berube said a computer glitch likely caused the lineup snafu.

“Minten was starting,” Berube said. “Then I came out and I heard Auston Matthews getting announced so I was like ‘What?’ So I called Steve Kozari, the referee, and I just told him ‘I don’t know, we got Minten down but I heard Matthews.’ He said ‘Well put Matthews out there just to start the game.’ And then he changed.”

“It’s on the computer. So these computers screw everything up,” Berube said with a laugh. “That’s why I used to write them out, you know, on paper. I’d rather do that”

If Minten started the game instead of Matthews, the Leafs would have been assessed a penalty for using the incorrect lineup. This would have broken Rule 7.2 of the NHL rulebook, which states that “for an infraction of this rule, a bench minor penalty shall be imposed upon the offending team. This is an appeal play and must be brought to the referee’s attention prior to the second face-off in the game.”

The penalty is not used often given how rarely a situation like this one occurs, but it has happened before. The Nashville Predators received this exact penalty at the start of a game against the Seattle Kraken on November 20. In that instance, Predators head coach Andrew Brunette intended to start Filip Forsberg but Steven Stamkos went out instead and the Predators had to go to the penalty kill 43 seconds into the game.

“We were told we were starting,” Minten said on his interpretation of the events. “Then they were announcing it, and Auston’s name came up. Everyone was kind of looking around like ‘We don’t want to get a penalty,’ so Auston just went out there.”

This isn’t the first time Berube has found himself in a situation like this as he was caught using the wrong starting lineup back when he was still the head coach of the St. Louis Blues. During a game against the Edmonton Oilers on December 15, 2022, Brandon Saad was on the ice to begin when Brayden Schenn was listed in the starting lineup which was caught by then-head coach Jay Woodcroft. Suffice it to say that Berube was probably also thinking about that moment from nearly two years ago when history nearly repeated itself last night.

In the end, this situation ended up being a harmless close call that will live on as a minor footnote in the strands of time. The Leafs can laugh about it now that they fixed the problem just in time, but the team will almost certainly be checking to make sure their computers are in working order going forward so this ends up being a one-time thing and not a trend.

“I think they announced my name, but I wasn’t told that I was starting,” Matthews said on what happened. “I think just to be safe, I think they were talking to the guys in the room just to make sure. I don’t know, they announced my name so it must have meant that I was starting. So I just went out there and started.”