Craig Berube calls out Tim Stutzle ahead of Battle of Ontario.

The first round of the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs will feature a number of very exciting matchups and that will of course include the upcoming Battle of Ontario between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators.

There will no doubt be a ton of coverage when this series kicks off on Sunday but, in spite of the fact that they don't play today, the war of words has already begun in the media. On Saturday, Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube was asked how he intended to deal with the fact that the Senators tend to draw a lot of penalties, and the Maple Leafs head coach used the opportunity to take a jab at Senators forward Tim Stutzle.

Berube even went so far as to call out Stutzle by name in his response.

"We've discussed it," admitted Berube. "I think they lead the league. Stutzle is one that draws a lot of penalties, we looked at a lot of that and talked about a lot of it."

While it is a subject that Berube did bring up to his players in their preparations for this series, he also stressed that they can't let it impact their game.

"We gotta be disciplined," said Berube. "But you can't be tentative either we gotta play physical, we gotta be aggressive and deal with what we gotta deal with."

This may very well be a little gamesmanship on Berune's part, putting a thought in the mind's of the officials that will be overseeing this series regarding Stutzle's reputation. No doubt this is something that fans on both sides of the Battle of Ontario will be paying very close attention to in this series.