A bitter Blue and White pill

I take this blog and the Astonishing Dodgeblog pretty seriously. My goal is to hone my writing craft and develop the skills necessary to regularly write concise, informative articles that provide balanced viewpoints on the world of sports. Because of that, I try to avoid covering my local teams, or the teams I support as a fan.

That said, I cannot resist temptation any longer.... I need to talk about the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The past two years have been tremendously disappointing as a fan of the Leafs. It is the hope and expectation of every member of the Leafs nation that the Leafs will contend for the Cup every year, but since the NHL lockout, they have not even made the playoffs. Of course, both years they've been well over .500 and have been very close to making the playoffs. Two years ago they missed out by a half a game, and last year the Blue and White were eleven points out.

However, with expectations so consistently high, being average or even mediocre just is not good enough. So the Leafs fired former general manager John Ferguson Jr. (now with the San Jose Sharks as head scout) and hired former Leafs GM Cliff Fletcher and gave him the clear mandate of tearing apart the roster with a clear eye to re-building the Maple Leafs.

In that respect, Fletcher has delivered.

Darcy Tucker. Kyle Wellwood. Bryan McCabe. Andrew Raycroft. Possibly Mats Sundin. All gone.

To replace them a bunch of Whos? have been brought in, such as Jeff Finger and Nikolai Kulemin to be the foundations of the team. More significantly, Fletcher hired former San Jose Sharks coach Ron Wilson to give the team a new defense-first work ethic.

What Cliff Fletcher has not, will not, and can not deliver is a winning franchise.

The Leafs are going to stink this season. They will be in the bottom five of the league. Oddly, I expect them to be more competitive then the previous two seasons. They'll lose, and they'll lose often, but I wholly expect their goals against to be much lower. They'll get beaten a lot, but not badly. They'll lose by ones and twos, not by sixes and sevens as they have in previous years.

It's going to be a bitter pill to swallow, but this season will be the foundation of a much improved team.

Out with the old, in with the older

Yesterday, the long anticipated news hit the airwaves in Toronto. The Toronto Maple Leafs General Manager John Ferguson Jr. was fired, and replaced by former GM Cliff Fletcher. Already, the local news outlets have begun to analyze this move and opine on the future performance of one of the most storied franchises in the NHL.

Truth be told, I've been avoiding this topic since I started this blog. Writing about the mismanagement of the Leafs has become the favourite sport amongst Torontonians. In the past three weeks the cacophony of voices demanding change has reached a deafening crescendo, and I really did not see any point in adding my voice to the debate.

However, the release of Ferguson, and the addition of Fletcher demands acknowledgement.

The Leafs, as a franchise, have come to a fork in the road. They can choose to continue on their current path made of half-measures that lead to mediocrity, or they can make some real, meaningful changes that will lead to a stronger team, possibly even a Stanley cup winning team.

The first step is to give Cliff Fletcher's a clear mandate: make savvy trades to deal the large contracts of aging stars like Mats Sundin, Darcy Tucker, Pavel Kubina and Andrew Raycroft with an eye to gaining young prospects and draft picks.

The second step should be to re-structure the front office. Money needs to be spent on a better scouting staff. A recent Globe and Mail article highlighted how bad their scouting has been - - Scott Thornton has been the Leafs highest scoring first round draft pick in the past twenty years. No offense to Mr. Thornton, but that is not good enough.

With a superior scouting system in place, MLSE needs to reduce Richard Peddie's role in operations, and do what they did with the Raptors -- find a Bryan Colangelo type who is a dyed-in-the-wool hockey man. Colangelo made an instant splash as the VP in charge of basketball operations for the Raptors, and won Executive of the Year from the NBA. He knows basketball and knows how to run a franchise. The Leafs need to find an equivalent hockey man.

Unfortunately, the Leafs have apparently alienated Scotty Bowman, and Brian Burke is under contract to the Anaheim Ducks. But the Maple Leafs still have an ace up their sleeve.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are the premiere franchise of the National Hockey League.

They've got more money, more fans, and most importantly, more prestige then any other hockey franchise in the world. The Leafs have the cultural cache to woo players, scouts, and coaches to Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment.

A general manager that actually has the power to make real decisions and really shape the franchise would be able to make the Toronto Maple Leafs a viable franchise not just in office towers, but on the ice again.

Here's the problem. The scenario above hinges on a big if. Namely, the nature of Cliff Fletcher's assignment. If he is being told to run the franchise as he sees fit, then the Maple Leafs might reach a Code: Ballard level emergency.

Cliff Fletcher, as former GM of the Maple Leafs is a big part of their Buds fine tradition of weak drafting. Not to be age-ist, but he's 72 years old, and being a general manager is a high pressure job that takes durability and energy, particularly if you're the general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs. I'm not sure a seventy-two year old has those qualities.

Is Cliff Fletcher up to the task? I'm not sure. What I do know is that he is being thrown to the lion's den. Although Fletch survived it before, the lions have been starved for another decade since he was last here. They might be more wild.

Like I said above, the Leafs are at a crossroads, and the sign post is Cliff Fletcher. I think all of Toronto is hoping that he points the beloved Maple Leafs in the correct direction. Richard Peddie and Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment need to make some real changes or else there may be a riot on their hands.