Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube is more forthcoming than his popular reputation suggests, and he’ll provide the answers you want to know about the team, for the most part. One of the key developments of this season has been the Maple Leafs’ ascension from a dormant power play to the best man advantage in the NHL over the past two months.

Prior to Thursday’s games, Toronto’s power play is connecting at a 38.5 percent clip since February 1, the best mark in the NHL during that span, while ranking fifth overall on the season with a 26 percent success rate cumulatively. Berube provided a key, understated answer as to why the power play has been on fire, an essential development for a Maple Leafs team that has been middling at 5-on-5 throughout the season.

“The biggest key for me were the resets at the top — not forcing it through the seams,” Berube said following Toronto’s 6-2 victory over the Calgary Flames on March 17. “It is clogged up there, but we moved it around. We were patient when moving around, and we attacked when we could and shot it. We capitalized on some plays. The resets up top were very important.”

Berube’s comments may have been overlooked, but they’ve been instructive over the past few weeks, and they provide a window into how the Maple Leafs’ power play operates at its scintillating best. When the power play struggled during the first half of the season, it often was due to flaccid entries, where one of Mitch Marner, Morgan Rielly (since abandoned for a five-forward power play look) or William Nylander would skate up to centre ice at half-speed, drop the puck back to an oncoming skater and allow the opponent to set up their base defence. Attacking with speed has solved the Leafs’ entry issues. Knies and Tavares are two modern power forwards that Berube wants to be causing havoc at the net-front and bumper spots, while the resets at the top have allowed the Leafs to find better looks.

Reset at the top and clean looks develop for the Maple Leafs. Nylander’s goal against the Flames on March 17 represents the optimized version of Toronto’s power play, the edition many fans and national media believe the Maple Leafs ought to look like at all times. Auston Matthews surveys the zone and gets the puck back to the top for Marner, who one-touches it over to Nylander. Nylander wires home a slap shot from the top of the circle — and again, many believe the ideal Leafs’ power play involves Nylander or Matthews launching rockets from the top of the grid — past a helpless Dustin Wolf.

And while this reset doesn’t occur at the very top of the offensive zone, it’s still a reset that occurs fluidly, where Flames defenceman Rasmus Andersson blocks Nylander’s initial shot attempt, Nylander recovers the puck and finds Matthews, who patiently outwaits the defence before picking the top corner. It’s the vintage Maple Leafs’ power play in many respects.

This one may not count as a reset, but the power play does start by working its way from the top, before Matthews’ lateral pass hits Avalanche defenceman Devon Toews and trickles in during a March 19 victory. Good luck often arises from great process!

Here’s another example, where Matthew Knies, Matthews and John Tavares combine to win a key puck battle against the Utah Hockey Club off the faceoff, in a March 10 victory. Matthews fishes it out by banking the puck off Tavares’ skate over to Knies, who sends it to the Marner at the top. Utah’s Alexander Kerfoot apparently tells his teammates to watch Matthews crashing low, but Marner gets it quickly over to Nylander, who makes no mistake with a laser past Karel Vejmelka.

Knies continues to be a behemoth at the net-front, while his seven goals off deflections are tied for the second-most in the NHL. He unlocks the simplicity of the power play and creates good results for the Maple Leafs, even during the stretches where the man advantage was struggling in part due to his ability to get his stick on pucks and use his size to clean up rebounds. And the resets clearly benefit Tavares as well, who is using his hockey intelligence and power game to excellent effect, where he has an outside chance of reaching the 40-goal mark for the second time as a member of the Maple Leafs.

Here’s an example from a March 8 loss to the Colorado Avalanche. Nylander works the puck back to Marner, who dishes the puck back to Nylander, moving with some pace, and he gets the puck over to Matthews at the side of the net. Tavares is positioned in the bumper, crashes down low with two strides and knocks it home. Tavares’ 11 power play goals are tied for 13th in the NHL alongside Nylander, Patrick Kane and several others, and his ability to generate goals from the bumper spot provides the Maple Leafs’ power play with a diversity of options that the opponent has to account for at all times.

It can be all so simple, and Berube’s more than happy to provide the answers in plain sight, while teaching a pragmatic, north-south approach at 5-on-5. Toronto’s power play is getting idealized looks by resetting at the point and working the puck around, with a clear approach on how to attack the net. It could pay dividends in the playoffs, where the Maple Leafs’ power play has too often been a pain point during the Matthews-Marner era.