LEAFS TAKEAWAYS: On Berube’s future, Knies trade talk, Cowan

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Another ugly evening for the Maple Leafs, this time in La Belle Province.

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A terrible first period against the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre was the Leafs’ undoing on Tuesday night and resulted in a 3-1 loss.

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The Leafs are 0-6-2 in eight games since the break for the Winter Olympics ended and have not won since Feb. 3 in Edmonton. It’s the Leafs’ longest winless skid since the 2014-15 season, when the club went 11 games (0-10-1) without a victory, the longest winless streak in franchise history that did not include ties.

“We need more guys to dig in and contribute than there is right now,” coach Craig Berube said to media in Montreal after the game.

Leafs captain Auston Matthews has gone 12 games without scoring a goal, putting him one game shy of his career-high of 13 goalless games, a drought that happened in his 2016-17 NHL rookie season. Matthews, who has one goal in his past 16 games, had two shots on goal.

The Leafs didn’t score on two power plays. Matthews has four power-play goals this season, and none since Jan. 1.

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The Canadiens built a 2-0 lead in the first period thanks to what amounted to full domination of the Leafs through 20 minutes. Shots on goal were 18-5 and attempts were 33-9 as Montreal ran around the offensive zone with no pushback from Toronto.

Oliver Kapanen and Phillip Danault scored for the Canadiens, and William Nylander got one back for the Leafs in the second. Jake Evans scored into an empty Leafs net in the final minute of the game.

“It’s a lot of losses in a row now,” Nylander told media in Montreal. “We’ve been playing snippets of good hockey. That’s not how we want to play. We want to play a full game of good hockey.”

Three takeaways:

NO RESPONSE TO BERUBE

It’s not going too far to wonder if Leafs general manager Brad Treliving has pondered a coaching change, is it?

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Yes, we mean right now. Bear with us.

Berube told media in Montreal on Tuesday morning that part of his job is to instil confidence in the players. Berube keeps saying things along the lines of the importance of the players working their way out of the winless streak and that he is optimistic because the team has played well in the past.

Nothing Berube is saying as we approach mid-March and a Leafs home game on Thursday night against the Anaheim Ducks is permeating the dressing room. Nothing Berube is doing from a coaching perspective is working in the team’s favour.

Against the Canadiens, playing better in the second and third periods didn’t result in anything positive, did it?

If Treliving chose to do so, he could name assistant Derek Lalonde as the interim head coach for the remainder of the season and see what comes of it. Reset once the season ends and start your coaching search in earnest.

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There’s nothing the Leafs, now 13 points out of a playoff spot, are doing that supports the idea of retaining Berube once the regular season ends on April 15.

A coaching change now would let the players off the hook, to an extent. It could also provide a charge that’s non-existent. There’s little life in anything the Leafs are doing, definitely from a team standpoint.

The Leafs have 17 games remaining. It’s difficult to envision them winning any time soon with the way they’re playing.

If your main line of thinking is the potential increasing of the Leafs’ chances of winning the draft lottery (hello Gavin McKenna), a coaching change might be the last thing you want. As of Tuesday night, the Leafs’ odds of winning the lottery were 6.5%.

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Do we think a coaching change is going to happen now? Not really, no.

Five more weeks of this brand of Leafs hockey, though. With the season as bad as it has been, that’s hard to wrap your mind around.

KNIES BIT OF RUMOURS

Is there a world in which Matthew Knies becomes a Canadien in the off-season?

Apparently, there is.

Speculation continues that Treliving and Montreal GM Kent Hughes had talks regarding Knies before the NHL trade deadline hit at 3 p.m. this past Friday.

How serious those talks were hasn’t been said. It’s no secret that the Leafs have to start acquiring good young players, prospects and draft picks. Those kinds of assets are few and far between in Toronto.

It’s our view, though, that Knies, who does not have trade protection, should be part of the Leafs’ plan going forward. Power forwards with age on their side can’t be picked off trees. It’s true that the 23-year-old Knies hasn’t had the kind of season many envisioned, including himself, but a lingering lower-body injury hasn’t helped. He’s capable of more and we would expect a bounce-back season in 2026-27.

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Frankly, if the Leafs continue playing the kind of poor, inconsistent hockey they’ve put on display since the Winter Olympics, what they do with Knies (if anything) wouldn’t top the list of concerns.

Whoever is in charge would have to take a long, hard look at the core of Matthews, Nylander, Tavares and Morgan Rielly and decide whether the group finally can take the reins and lead the team to playoff success. Perhaps that’s going to happen anyway.

COWAN SHINES

A day after Berube praised Easton Cowan for his energy and ability to transport the puck, the 20-year-old rookie had a fine performance.

In playing 18 minutes 21 seconds — his fourth-highest total in 49 games this season — Cowan set up Nylander with a nifty give-and-go, hustled to draw a holding minor on defenceman Lane Hutson in the second and was among the Leafs’ leaders in possession.

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The play with Nylander that resulted in the goal should provide Cowan with a solid dose of confidence. When he was put on a line with Nylander and Matthews, there was chemistry.

When Cowan was rocked with an open-ice hit by Brendan Gallagher late in the first period, it didn’t impact what the youngster did the rest of the night. Jake McCabe stepped in and engaged Gallagher in a fight.

Keep giving those kind of minutes to Cowan. Let him learn on the job. He’ll be better off for it in the long run, and if anything, should be driven by the desire to not be part of such a string of losses again.

tkoshan@postmedia.com

X: @koshtorontosun

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