When he went back to Philadelphia, where he lived and still lives and had played parts of seven years with the Flyers, he told his bosses, Paul Holmgren and Bobby Clarke, that he was going to Washington.

They said, no you’re not — you’re staying here.

And stay he did. For the next 12 years. As a company man doing whatever they needed him to do.

If they needed a head coach in the AHL, he was the guy. If they needed an assistant for Ken Hitchcock or John Stevens or Peter Laviolette, he was the guy. And if they needed a head coach for the Flyers, as they did for two seasons after Laviolette was fired, he was the guy.

Berube, great soldier as a junior hockey player, great soldier as a semi-skilled NHL tough guy, became a great soldier in Philadelphia, admired for his hard work, his giant heart, his hard head, his loyalty and his broad view of the game.

That’s the new coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs — unlike so many of the old coaches.

Sheldon Keefe was mostly finesse when he played. Randy Carlyle was a near-all-star. Mike Murphy was a sound NHL player. Paul Maurice was a kid. Pat Quinn and Pat Burns are closer to Berube in makeup, but Burns never did play at a very high level and Quinn toughed his way through nine NHL seasons, mostly on size and brawn and brain.

Against all odds, the undrafted Craig Berube played 1,054 games in the NHL, scored the lowest number of points for any forward who played that long, fought 303 times, never suffered a concussion that he knows of and now has coached professionally for 25 years.