Just who is this ‘quietly brilliant’ new Leafs coach Craig Berube

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This is what you’ll get from Craig Berube. A straight answer. A short answer.

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And then a rather cold stare that says ‘Next question.’

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He won’t go into details the way Sheldon Keefe went into details. He won’t make himself the show the way Mike Babcock made himself the show. He won’t pick fights the way Ron Wilson chose to pick fights with the media.

He won’t huff and puff and entertain the way Pat Burns did or take a concept the way Pat Quinn would and transform it into a prognosis.

Berube isn’t about to change for Toronto and Toronto is unlikely to change for the 40th coach of the Maple Leafs. He is who he is.

He’s called Chief at a time when that nickname may no longer be politically correct. He’s rather colourless at a time when colour sells.

But there’s the other side. He has spent 16 years scrapping and clawing and fighting his way to play more than 1,000 games in the National Hockey League on skills that were rather limited.

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You don’t get through 38 years in pro hockey, give or take a week, without having something more that isn’t always apparent — and that something ticked all the right boxes for Leafs GM Brad Treliving, who settled on Berube as coach after an extensive search to replace the fired Keefe.

And try and find someone to say bad things about Berube — those he coached with, the players he coached, those he played or coached against — is something of a challenge.

As Treliving found out when doing his research, the long list of those willing to stand up for Berube, to talk about his attributes, to share how he changed or influenced their lives, was an impressive one.

The answers from the outside were usually like this: He knows how to build a team from the inside. The key word being team. Not one player. Not one star. No Core Four in Berube’s world. A team.

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And how to make every player important. Berube talks about accountability — a buzzword missing in action from the Maple Leafs in the Brendan Shanahan era — and so does almost everyone who talks about Berube.

Players talk of his communication skills. He’s direct. He’s honest. Sometimes brutally honest. There is no hidden agenda with Berube. Mostly straight lines.

He believes that so much of the game starts at practice. Those 50 minutes a day mean everything, set the tempo, the agenda for a team.

The pace of the practice matters. The organization of the practice. The purpose of it. That may not get a lot of attention in many hockey conversations. It consumes Berube on a daily basis throughout the season.

And he’s smart. Smart enough to know what he doesn’t know. That’s a skill many coaches lack. Self-awareness. Berube is more than self aware.

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Having been a third or fourth liner most of his career, he can relate to the bottom half of rosters. Having been a minor-league coach, a minor-league assistant and an NHL assistant coach, he has a broad view of the business.

It may not sound all that sophisticated as he speaks on his first official day on the job, but again, those he is closest with know differently. One of his past associates told Treliving that Berube is “quietly brilliant.”

Berube is tight with Rick Tocchet, whom he played with in Philadelphia. The Leafs are banking the next years on the notion they have hired a Tocchet-like coach — one who builds teams that play with passion and emotion, Treliving style — for their group.

The list of those Berube has played for in his career almost reads like a who’s-who of hockey history with a twist: He played junior for Ken Hitchcock, Doug Sauter and Bill LaForge, each of them legends in their own way.

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He played in the NHL for Paul Holmgren, Mike Keenan, Tom Watt, Roger Neilson, Dave King and Doug Risebrough.

He later coached with John Stevens, Holmgren, Peter Laviolette and most recently worked in St. Louis with the Hall of Famer Hitchcock as an almost-daily advisor on everything about coaching and hockey.

Was Berube the Leafs first choice? Probably not. But that doesn’t matter now.

GM Treliving talked to or met with at least nine other candidates. He had his list of what he wanted in a coach then started adding candidates to meet his criteria.

This is a hugely important hire for the GM heading to his second season with the Leafs. He didn’t settle on Berube, he boldly made the call as to who will influence his own future in hockey.

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What was rarely mentioned at the Tuesday press availability with Berube was him winning the Stanley Cup in St. Louis, how unlikely that was, or how long it has been since the Leafs most recently won a championship — the year before St. Louis entered the NHL.

The notion of winning a Cup cannot be real in any way until the Leafs look like a team capable of winning more than just a round in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The fact that only one NHL coach in the past 77 years — Scotty Bowman — has won a Cup with more than one team wasn’t mentioned either.

The Cup can wait for now. There’s a season to be played. There’s building to be done. There’s a coach to be understood. There’s a new way of doing business as the Maple Leafs.

Just how new?

That remains to be answered.

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