Craig Berube under fire after benching move sparks player backlash

Calle Jarnkrok spent his final two seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs playing for head coach Craig Berube, and he's still not over how it ended.

The winger officially closed the book on his NHL career Monday, signing a three-year deal with the SHL's Brynas. Thirteen years in the league, four of them in Toronto, done just like that.

His exit interview, so to speak, came in Swedish. And it wasn't polite.

"I've had two tough years, and it feels a bit sad not to be able to finish over there the way I wanted," Jarnkrok told hockeysverige.se.

Jarnkrok played just 56 games this past season, scoring six goals and eight points. The year before that got wiped out by a groin and sports hernia injury.

But it's what happened after he got healthy that still bothers him. He opened this past season on fire, scoring in each of his first three games while averaging 10:31 of ice time.

Second on the team in scoring through three outings. Then Berube scratched him for game six.

Jarnkrok says scoring streak wasn't enough to stay in the lineup

"Two years ago I couldn't play at all," Jarnkrok recalled. "But last year I came in and felt in really good shape, I scored goals, and then he put me in the stands. It was a little weird."

He'd feature in just 18 of Toronto's first 25 games that season, in and out of the lineup despite the hot start. Ask any player what that does to their head.

Here's the thing. A winger who scores in three straight games earning a healthy scratch isn't a normal coaching decision, it's a message. And Jarnkrok clearly never figured out what that message was supposed to be.

"I was very surprised," he said. "It's the GM and the coach who decide, but it was an uphill battle. I did well but wasn't allowed to play. It was tough to motivate myself and keep going."

Berube is no longer behind the Maple Leafs bench, with Jim Hiller now running the show in Toronto. That timing isn't lost on anyone who watched how Jarnkrok's tenure unraveled.

Jarnkrok still had kind words for the city itself, saying Toronto's hockey passion reminded him of home in Gavle. The coach, clearly, is a separate matter entirely.