Bitter Leaf Turns 6

I started this blog six years ago - March 26, 2006. The Leafs were floundering as an organization, they were out of the playoffs, the GM's moves were not panning out, and the future looked cloudy. It's hard to believe how much has changed...

Over the last six years, I've posted nearly 500 entries, been read by maybe 35 people and logged a very small number of page views. More importantly, I've found a somewhat productive outlet to deal with the Leafs and the frustration and disappointment that unites us all.

A look back at some of my favourite posts from the past six years:

1. My very first post: Tedesco, Ferguson and Me
2. Toronto sports media story generator (this one might be my favourite)
3. Taking on one of the most tired tropes: Are the Fans to blame?
4. On JFJ's Reign of Error and his firing
5. First Leafs games - my daughter's and my son's
6. Top Ten items I'd like to see banned from Leafs coverage
7. An open letter to the Ottawa Senators
8. My first anti-Burke post - 7 months before he was hired
9. On Sundin and the Leafs' captains - I'm so sick of Goodbyes
10. Some dislike for Darcy Tucker here, here, here, here, here and here.

Thanks to all of you who have read an entry, left a comment or sent me an email. Hopefully I'll be able to put up a post about the Leafs winning a playoff game when this Blog turns 10.

Behaving Economically?

I've been reading a lot of books on behavioural economics and decision making lately. Can't say I'm any smarter as a result, fact is I'm often rather confused when any math symbols pop up, but there certainly have been numerous studies, anecdotes and learnings that will come in useful as idle chatter at my next cocktail party*.

As I'm sure many of you do, when I'm reading a book on game theory, artificial intelligence, foreign policy or behavioural economics I like to ask myself: what could this mean for the Toronto Maple Leafs?

Ok, maybe that's just me...I'm not sure if my Leaf filter is a genuine problem or if it's a heuristic that helps my aging brain better understand the subject matter at hand. I'd like to think it's the latter...

Out of the reading I've been doing lately, a few items have stayed with me and do seem to have some sort of application to the world of sport:

1. Herbert Simon's early work on problem solving and production systems;
2. Anchoring, especially as it applies to pricing;
3. Discounting (Hyperbolic v. Exponential); and
4. Favourite longshot bias.

Decision Making and Player Development

I've been a big proponent of the Leafs keeping their youngsters in developmental leagues for as long as possible. Not only does it give the players the opportunity to play big minutes in every situation (PP, PK, ES, etc.), it can also extend waiver eligibility, often doesn't exhaust a year of the player's entry-level contract, and if the player is in the CHL, their contract doesn't count against the 50 player limit.

In the late 1950s, Herbert A. Simon was exploring "solution by recognition" and the following passage made me question the best way to condition a young athlete, like say a Nazem Kadri...

One can train a man so that he has at his disposal a list or repertoire of the possible actions that could be taken under the circumstances...A person who is new at the game does not have immediately at his disposal a set of possible actions to consider, but has to construct them on the spot - a time- consuming and difficult mental task.

The decision maker of experience has at his disposal a checklist of things to watch out for before finally accepting a decision. A large part of the difference between the experienced decision maker and the novice in these situations is not any particular intangible like “judgment” or “intuition.” If one could open the lid, so to speak, and see what was in the head of the experienced decision-maker, one would find that he had at his disposal repertoires of possible actions; that he had checklists of things to think about before he acted; and that he had mechanisms in his mind to evoke these, and bring these to his conscious attention when the situations for decisions arose.

Most of what we do is to get people ready to act in situations of encounter consists of drilling in these lists into them sufficiently deeply so that they will be evoked quickly at the time of the decision.”

I think your typical sports talking-head would refer to the experienced decision-maker as a "wily vet"and the challenges of the novice as "rookie errors." But what it comes down to, is ensuring players have a thoroughly developed and refined repetoire of possible actions.

Of course, the big question remains: is this accrual of experience and list-building best done at the AHL or NHL level?

Anchoring

Anchoring refers to the core information an individual refers to when making an initial decision. Individuals often have a habit of over-relying on a single trait or a single piece of information in their decision making process. This is especially true when it comes to our understanding of value pricing, for example:

People tend to have an "anchor" price for most products, and judge them in relation to that anchor. For example, if you expect a laptop computer to be about $1,000, the $750 model might look like a bargain, but if you were anchored on $500, it'll seem expensive. Some products have very stable anchor prices (milk, bread), others change often (most electronics).

Dan Ariely has some great writing on how established prices set an initial value that consumers are usually unwilling to move from.

For years, sports teams in weaker markets, especially those with attendance problems, have given away tickets. While that tactic may generate revenues through increased concession sales, parking, souvenirs, etc. it may create a larger challenge: it effectively establishes the value of a game ticket as $0.

If you're a Panthers fan and can get free tickets by showing your Florida State drivers license, the Panthers have effectively established the value of their tickets as $0. How many people would be willing to pay the face value to attend the next game?

I think the anchoring is one of several challenges facing the Toronto Blue Jays.

For years, Toronto was awash in free Jays tickets through sponsors, potential sponsors, vendors, give-aways, etc. As a result:

1. All of these comped tickets were included in the attendance counts, inflating the Jays' attendance numbers; and
2. For many baseball-going Torontonians, it established the value of a Blue Jays ticket as $0.

I'm a walking case study in anchor pricing: I've rarely paid to go to a Jays game, getting my fill of free tickets each year, and the last time I took my family to a ball game, it cost me $28 for four tickets at Safeco.

I've clearly established my anchor price for major league baseball and it's going to be tough, if not impossible, to get me to pay $22 for an awful bleacher seat at the Dome, never mind shelling out $44 for field level seats.

Looking at the dismal attendance numbers, I get the feeling I'm not alone.

Discounting

The two types of discounting that are particularly interesting to me are hyperbolic versus exponential discounts.

Not to beat the Phil Kessel trade to death, but I think it's a good fit here. In discounting, there is a tendency to prefer immediate payoffs to those that may take time to realize - immediate needs outweigh anything distant or abstract. Or as Greg Muller so nicely puts it:

The core question is how people penalize various options for having a ‘delayed payoff’. Would you rather have $30 now and $50 in five years? Implicit in the decision-making process is that later payoffs aren’t worth as much. You might need the money now more than later, or there’s a risk you won’t get the money later, due to death/bankrupcty of the source/etc. The drop in value of a payoff due to the delay involved is called the ‘delay discount’....[people] tend to over-prefer options with more immediate payouts, which should be no surprise to anyone who has interacted with humans before.

I have no idea if any of this entered into the decision making process behind the Kessel trade, but considering the Leafs have traded away 50% of their first round picks in the last decade, I have to think there's some sort of discounting going on as the team prefers to address immediate needs at the cost of a supposedly uncertain future.

The Favourite Longshot Bias

I'm not much of a gambler. For my NCAA bracket this year when I came across matches that were simply too close for me to call I turned to Vegas sports books and chose the team with the better odds. I finished in the top third of the pool (well back of the money) but, more importantly, I once again lost to my NCAA basketball loving wife.

I had presumed that by turning to an informed audience, that is people who bet on sports, I might have a better chance at winning or at least getting an informed opinion.

But then I started reading about the favourite longshot bias, the tendency for gamblers to over-bet on longshots and under-bet on favourites (this approach would have been rather fruitful in the first few rounds of the NHL playoffs, especially in the East).

One of the reasons suggested for over-betting on longshots is that gamblers are enamored with risk.

Once again, putting on the Leaf filter, I think the favourite longshot bias partially explains why GMs acquire players in decline. Case in point: was there a longer-shot at recovery than Andrew Raycroft? The phrase "longshot" doesn't go far enough to define the odds of him ever returning to Calder Trophy winning form, yet three GMs have employed him in his post-Boston decline (two of whom are no longer GMs).

In terms of risk, his decline in price (and term) certainly helps explain why Mike Gillis would ink Raycroft to a deal.

So called "risk-love" (the opposite of risk-aversion) is often associated as the cause of over-betting on longshots and certainly explains Raycroft's UFA contract in Colorado.

Unfortunately, neither value nor risk-love explain JFJ's terrible deal to acquire Raycroft.

Which leads me to the other rationale often cited to explain the longshot bias: bettors misunderstand, or simply cannot understand, probabilities.

I think JFJ is firmly in the latter camp, possibly because he was a rookie GM unfamiliar with "solution by recognition" and he miscalculated the discount by preferring the immediate solution of an NHL starting goalie in 2006 to the longer-term payoff of developing Rask into a better starting goalie in 2009...

As for my reading habits, I'm reading George Orwell's Essays and am in the midst of a brilliant piece on Charles Dickens, but for the life of me I'm struggling to figure out what it has to do with the Leafs....

*more likely to get me really weird looks at the grade school doors as I wait to drop-off/pick-up my kids.

Brian Burke Can't Even Manage Expectations

Brian Burke says a lot of things.

He’d pull the trigger on Kessel again.

Ron Wilson’s job is safe.

“Our goal is to make the playoffs; that's our intention. We think this team is good enough.”

I don’t know if I believe a word of it.

There are four simple words that Burke might want to take under consideration moving forward: under promise, over deliver.

Not only are those four words a pretty good maxim, they may also the one thing the Cliff Fletcher did right in his second go ‘round with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

I had all the patience in the world for the Leafs to bottom out, shed the JFJ remnants and bad contracts, get younger, get deeper, and hopefully get better.

But if the new GM doesn’t have the patience for a re-build – and sacrificing two firsts a second and a third is proof positive of that - why should fans?

I haven’t been writing much about this team because there’s not much to write about. Going into the season, it was clear that the PK and goaltending needed to be addressed in order for this team to have any sort of chance, never mind success. Neither of these shortcomings were dealt with and the team continues to play some ugly hockey.

How ugly? Even if the team manages to go .500 the rest of the way (a tall order) the Leafs will finish with their lowest point total since the lock-out and their worst season in over 10 years.

To put that in perspective, Wilson and Burke are on target to ice a team that finished 9 points back of the worst team ever assembled by JFJ.

"We believe we're good enough this year to make the playoffs."

Sorry Mr. Burke, you're not even close.

Me and the boys and our 50

As you likely well know, the Leafs have signed 22 year old prospect Christian Hanson out of the NCAA.

Clearly, the Leafs organization has an affinity for NCAA players with upwards of nine playing in their system, most of whom were drafted by the JFJ led Leafs.

The last signing of this type by the Leafs that I can recall is Mike Johnson who signed with the Leafs out of Bowling Green back in 1997. I'm not sure that's the most recent example, but it's certainly the only one that comes to mind - possibly due to my diminishing mental prowess and possibly due to the lack of innovative impact signings the Leafs have been able to pull off over the last fifteen years.

Rumours persist that Burke is pursuing a few more NCAA prospects, which brings up the issue of Standard Player Contracts (SPCs) and why it was so important for the Leafs to shed bodies at the trade deadline.

As I wrote about when the Leafs waived Bell and Kronwall, NHL teams are limited to having a maximum of 50 players signed to SPCs for any given season. the loss of Bell, Kronwall, Moore and Antropov put the Leafs at about 45 SPCs. Since that time they have signed Harrison (46), Hamilton (47), Berry (48) and now Hanson (49).

That means the Leafs have one more spot open to sign an NCAA prospect and one big loophole to play with.

According to the CBA section 50.8 (d), the Leafs can tender contracts to undrafted free agents that are post-dated to next season and so long as the Leafs don't exceed 50 SPCs for a given July 1 to June 30 period, they are in compliance with the CBA.

As the Leafs have 13 contracts expiring on June 1, Burke has lots of wriggle room to sign NCAA prospects for next year with one competitive disadvantage: anyone signed to a post-dated SPC can't play for the Leafs or Marlies this year.

For those of you who scratched your head when the Leafs dealt for Hollweg, you can add the possible loss of a NCAA prospect due to SPC limits to your list, along with that fifth-round pick that was spent to acquire him, in your hate email to Fletcher.

For an excellent summary of the various roster limits and exemptions you should read this; there's on-going discussion of the Hanson signing over at PPP and a nice piece from Alex Tran at Maple Leaf Hot Stove here.

From Spineless to Incompent: A History of Leafs' GMs, Part II

A History of Leafs' GMs, Part II

1989 - 1991 Floyd Smith

Floyd Smith (AKA Sleepy Floyd, Count Floyd, Trader Smith) gets his own blog entry, not so much for what he did as a GM (make a million trades and see his team hit rock bottom) but because of all the turmoil that surrounded the Leafs during his tenure.

The similarities between JFJ’s run and Floyd Smith’s are amazing – from conflict at the Board Level to an initial effort to go with youth that resulted in whole sale trades of draft picks and prospects; from a promising start to a search for a new executive to come in as a new President and GM of the Leafs to clean up the horrible mess.

Winning %: .428

Playoff Appearances: 1 for 2

Drafted: Felix Potvin, Yanic Perreault, Alexander Goodynyuk

Best Trade: Peter Zezel and Bob Rouse acquired for Al Iafrate

Worst Trade: Tom Kurvers acquired for a first round pick (Scott Niedermayer).

The Back Story

When Gord Stellick resigned in August of 1989, Harold Ballard offered the Leafs’ GM job to Frank Bonello, who was the GM of the Marlies Club that won the 1975 Memorial Cup. Ballard low-balled the salary offer to Bonello and the deal fell through. The very next morning, Ballard announced that former Leaf coach Floyd Smith was the Leafs' new GM.

Floyd Smith's team actually managed to put up a respectable record in his first year, going 38-38-4 (the Leafs first .500 season in more than a decade - since 1978-79). Toronto qualified for the post season, but were eliminated by the St. Louis Blues in five games (in the land before Internet, I remember lying on the floor of a dorm room in Ottawa doing everything I possibly could to try to maintain a static riddled, weak AM radio signal of that final Leafs' game. I can still hear the cry of "Momesso" when his slap shot from out near the redline eliminated put my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs down 3-0 in the series).

One of the most infamous bad trades in the history of the Leaf franchise went down on Smith's watch: a first round pick to New Jersey for Tom Kurvers. The deal was pulled off by Smith in the fall of 1989 when the Leafs were a mid-pack club. Neither the media, the fans or the club saw what was coming: in his second season as GM, the wheels completely fell off.

The 1990-91 season pretty much couldn’t have gone worse for the Leafs who flirted with last overall pretty much from day one. The team lost 13 of their first 16 games and Smith was ordered to revamp the roster. He would go on to make eight trades over the next nine weeks and while a few of the trades brought some pretty important talent to the club, the Leafs’ never recovered. I can remember seeing New Jersey Devil jerserys with Lindros’ 88 on the back.

The death of Harold Ballard led to a huge legal battle over the future of the franchise. Donald Giffin and Steve Stavro, the co-executors of Ballard’s estate, ended up in a protracted legal battle over the future of the Toronto Maple Leafs organization.

Giffin wanted to keep Smith on as GM and bring in one of John Ferguson Sr., Mike Nykoluk, or former Leafs GM Jim Gregory to run the hockey organization. Stavro was desperate to depose Floyd Smith and bring in a business person to oversee the Leafs; his first choice was Lyman MacInnis, who was the then-head of the Entertainment division of Labatt’s.

Ultimately, Steve Stavro won the court case, the decision allowed him to replace Giffin with a Chief Operating Officer who would turn out to be Cliff Fletcher.

The Good

The Leafs first .500 season in a decade made it seem like this team was finally on the right track.
Harold Ballard died.

A few key future Leafs acquired: Zezel, Rouse, Potvin...

The Bad

Better pull up a chair…

The Leafs started the 1989 season with three wins in their first 16 games and then started the 1990 calendar year by going winless in 10 (0-7-3).

The Leafs had actually collected a number of early draft picks most of whom were shipped out of town when Smith pulled off eight trades in November and December of 1990. In addition to the prospects, in a desperate attempt to right the ship, Smith also traded three of the four first round draft picks.

The Leafs goaltending tandem was Raycroftian. Alan Bester, who never returned to form after giving up the famous Sergio Momesso playoff goal, would find himself spending a portion of the year in the minors with the Newmarket Saints, while Peter Ing was clearly in over his head.

The Crazy

On the one-month anniversary of Smith's hiring, the ever classy Ballard told the media that he’d gladly hire a different GM if someone better came along.

With defenceman Todd Gill struggling, Brad Marsh returns to action after being a healthy scratch for two months, only to have coach Tom Watt decide the Leafs will go with a five-man defensive rotation.

With all of Smith’s wheeling and dealing, the 1990-91 Toronto Maple Leafs dressed a team record 48 players that season.

Prior to being traded, Al Iafrate went through a very messy, public divorce, a paternity suit in St. Louis and his teammate Gary Leeman began publicly dating Iafrate's ex-wife.

Smith would finally trade Tom Kurvers to Vancouver for Brian Bradley. Bradley was goaless in his first season with the Leafs, putting up 11 assists in 26 games as a Leaf. The following season, Bradley continued to struggle scoring goals, potting just 10 in 59 games. Eventually, Bradley would be traded to Tampa Bay where he threatened to break the fifty goal mark in his first year with the club and would eventually score 42 in his first go ‘round with the Lightning.

Floyd Smith thought so much of defenceman Brad Marsh (who couldn’t crack the Leafs line-up and was not protected when the Senators expansion draft occurred) that Smith planned to offer the Leafs coaching position to him.

Smith puts Cliff Fletcher’s name forward to the Board of Directors, he told the Toronto Star: "Sure I knew it would probably cost me my job, but I recommended very strongly that they hire Cliff Fletcher to run the show.”

On the patented DGB How bad was it? 100 point scale: 93 – Just like JFJ’s tenure, Floyd Smith’s Leafs qualified for the post-season in Smith’s first year and seemed to have things going their way. Board interference and an inability to stick to plan made Smith’s second year one of the most tumultuous in Leafs history. Picks and prospects were shipped out of town by the truckload; the dressing room saw some unparalleled conflicts and the starting goalie lost all confidence and ability. And once again, Cliff Fletcher was brought to town to help clean up the mess…

From Spineless to Incompent: A History of Leafs' GMs

Following a spirited debate at PPP that attempted to quantify the incompetence of former Leafs' GM John Ferguson Junior, the question came up as to who is the worst Leafs GM in the past 35 years.

In an homage to Down Goes Brown, I thought I’d take a quick look at all of the GMs that have managed my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs over the last 40 years to see just where JFJ's tenure ranks.

The candidates:
1969 – 1979 Jim Gregory
1979 – 1981 Punch Imlach
1981 – 1988 Gerry McNamara
1988 – 1989 Gord Stellick
1989 – 1991 Floyd Smith
1991 – 1997 Cliff Fletcher
1997 – 1999 Ken Dryden
1999 – 2003 Pat Quinn
2003 – 2008 JFJ

Part I: 1969 to 1989

1969 – 1979 Jim Gregory

Winning %: .506

Playoff Appearances: 8 for 10

Drafted: Darryl Sittler, Lanny MacDonald, Mike Palmateer, Ian Turnbull, Dave Tiger Williams, Doug Jarvis, Randy Carlyle, John Anderson, Joel Quenville

Best Trade: Acquired Bernie Parent and Rick Kehoe for Bruce Gamble, Mike Walton and a 1st round pick

Worst Trade: Doug Jarvis for Greg Hubick

The Back Story
Replaced Leaf GM Punch Imlach for the 1969-70 season (I wasn’t born yet). The 1976 season is the first Leaf club I can remember cheering for.

The Good
Gregory was one of the first GMs to recognize European talent, landing the Leafs Borje Salming and Inge Hammarstrom.

Drafted iconic Leafs MacDonald, Sittler, Palmateer and brought Roger Neilson into the NHL with his first head coaching gig.

The team knocked off the Islanders in 1977 and in 1978 made it to the Stanley Cup Finals (yeah, they were swept by the Habs but the team was on the right track).

The Bad
In a word: Ballard.

In 1971, Harold Ballard became majority owner of the Leafs, Maple Leaf Gardens and appointed himself President and Chairman of the Leafs’ Board.

Under Ballard’s direction the Leafs lost Bernie Parent to the WHA and let Dave Keon’s contract expire in 1975 (Ballard then blocked Keon’s attempted return to the NHL from the WHA in 1980 as the Leafs still owned his NHL rights).

Allegedly, it was Ballard who made the deal with Sam Pollock that sent future hall of famer Doug Jarvis to the Habs for 72 games of Greg Hubick.

The Crazy
In 1972, Ballard was sentenced to nine years in prison for 47 counts of fraud. Ultimately, he finished serving his sentence in 1973. Allegedly, it was during one of his stays in a correctional facility that the Leafs were able to sign Salming and Hammarstrom as Ballard was notorious for his opposition to European players.

Ballard forced Gregory to fire coach Roger Neilson and, when the players lobbied for Neilson’s re-instatement Ballard relented, but he asked Neilson to return wearing a bag over his head to start the game. Neilson, smartly, declined to wear the bag.

On the patented DGB How bad was it? 100 point scale: 80 – the Leafs fielded pretty competitive teams throughout the decade and amassed a fair amount of talent. By the end of the 1970s they were actively competing against the dynasties in Montreal and on Long Island. Unfortunately, that wasn't good enough and Ballard brought back Punch Imlach.

1979 - 1981 Punch Imlach

Winning %: .456

Playoff Appearances: 2 for 2

Notable draft picks: Craig Muni, Bob McGill, Jim Benning

Best Trade: Acquired Rick Vaive and Bill Derlago for Tiger Williams and Jerry Butler

Worst Trade: Dealt Lanny MacDonald for Wilf Paiment and Pat Hickey

The Back Story
As per an earlier post on the 1979-1980 Leafs, Punch Imlach was brought in by Harold Ballard to help get the Leafs over a, ahem, small hump known as the Montreal Canadiens.

The ‘79 Leafs were a promising club led by all-stars Darryl Sittler, Lanny MacDonald and Borje Salming, with a pretty solid supporting cast of Mike Palmateer, John Anderson, Dan Maloney, Ron Ellis and Joel Quenville.

The Good
The Leafs acquired future captain and 50 goal man Rick Vaive...and that’s pretty much it.

The Bad
Imlach promptly put his ugly stamp on the club by trading Lanny MacDonald - fan favourite, 48 goal man and best pal of captain Darryl Sittler - along with Joel Quenville to Colorado for future Leon’s furniture pitch-man Wilf Paiement and Pat Hickey (who in my child hood memories could only score on the backhand. 38 goals in 120 games isn' tbad, but he struck me as terrible).

The Crazy
Imlach’s tenure was a rocky one, marked by serious conflict with the players and what seemed to be a weekly heart attack.

He sued the NHLPA in an effort to keep Sittler, Palmateer and others out of my favourite boy-hood program: Showdown (Palmateer makes Jeff O'Neill look like a paragon of fitness in that clip).

Late in the 1979-80 season, Leafs coach Floyd Smith was injured in a car accident, and after Dick Duff stepped behind the bench for two bad losses, Imlach appointed himself Head Coach. Imlach went 5-5-0 before being swept by the Minnesota North Stars in the first round of the playoffs.

Imlach was never actually fired. After yet another heart attack (his third or fourth), he returned to work in November of 1981 only to find Gerry MacNamara had his job. In the end, Ballard just let Imlach’s contract expire.

On the patented DGB How bad was it? 100 point scale: 92. This was the beginning of a long downward slide, made all the more painful because of the actual promise the Leafs had showed. Just two years removed from their first appearance in the semi-finals in a decade and one year off a solid series against the Montreal Canadiens, the Leafs broke up a solid core of players and the team would not hit .500 again for a decade.


Harold Ballard, interim GM, August to December 1980
Little known leaf fact: In August of 1980, after Imlach suffered one of his 624 heart attacks, Ballard appointed himself interim GM of the Leafs. During this time, he took Darryl Sittler off the trade market, agreed that Sittler would return as the Leafs captain for the 1980-81 season and signed Borje Salming to a contract extension. Likely the two best things that rat bastard ever did for the Leafs.


1981 – 1988 Gerry McNamara

Winning %: .367 (that’s not a typo)

Playoff Appearances: 4 for 7 (that’s not a typo either)

Notable draft picks: Wendel Clark, Gary Leeman, Russ Courtnall, Al Iafrate, Todd the ever dangerous Gill, Vince Damphousse, Luke Richardson

Best Trade: um, Greg Terrion for a 4th round pick? Tom Fergus for Bill Derlago? Not much to choose from here...

Worst Trade: Sittler for Rich Costello, 2nd round pick and Ken Strong or 1st round pick (Scott Niedermayer) for Tom Kurvers.

The Back Story
Not much to tell. A former hockey player and career Leaf employee, McNamara had some success as a scout and had been an assistant GM to Imlach. As GM, he somehow lasted through seven disastrous seasons.

The Good
With the Leafs unable to compete on the ice, the team amassed a number of solid draft picks, including Wendel Clark.

They somehow managed to sweep the Hawks in ’86 and also made the second round of the playoffs in 1987.

Um, did I mention Wendel Clark?

The Bad
This could be a never ending post.

This is the era of the pedophilia ring at Maple Leaf Gardens.

The Leafs didn’t have a single winning season under McNamara.

Not once did they have a season where they scored more goals than they allowed.

In 1985, the Leafs won just twenty games and finished 32 games under .500

In a panic move, after keeping the Leafs’ first round draft picks for his entire tenure, McNamara deals the team’s first pick to New Jersey for Tom Kurvers. New Jersey went on to select Scott Neidermayer.

Before being fired, McNamara’s Leafs went on a 1-15-6 run, posting a single victory over 22 games.

The Crazy
The Sittler trade talks were so protracted, Sittler walked out on the Leafs under the advice of his physician and the deal still took two more weeks to go down.

McNamara kept his job for nearly a decade despite the team never breaking the 70 point barrier.

On the patented DGB How bad was it? 100 point scale: 95. McNamara re-defined incompetence. Despite having a number of high draft picks, the Leafs seemed permanently mired in mediocrity. In these times of three point games, its’ hard to imagine a club putting up a .367 winning percentage for a single season, never mind the better part of a decade. The only upside was there were zero expectations for the club. This wasn’t a team that flirted with success and broke your heart, this was a team that backed into the playoffs when the Red Wings had a 40 point season.

1988 – 1989 Gord Stellick

Winning %: .390 (28-46-8)

Playoff Appearances: 0 for 1

Notable draft picks: The all Belleville Bulls draft: Rob Pearson, Scott Thornton and Steve Bancroft (three first round picks, three duds).

Best Trade: Ken Wregget dealt for 2 first round picks

Worst Trade: Russ Courtnall for John Kordic

The Back Story

Gord Stellick was a member of the Leafs communications staff who was tapped in April 1988 to become the Leafs GM. He was the youngest GM in the history of the Leafs and the NHL. He lasted 18 months. Then it was on to a lifetime of broadcasting, pimpin' for weight loss programs and writing books about 1967, because that's what Leaf fans really want to be reminded of.

The Good

It was a short stay.

The Bad

Ballard continued his meddlesome ways, dictating coaching choices and player personnel moves.

Despite amassing draft picks, the Leafs drafted poorly.

The Crazy

The usual Ballard stuff.

Stellick resigned as GM when Ballard refused to let him hire his own coach for the 1989 season.

On the patented DGB How bad was it? 100 point scale: 90. More of the same terrible on-ice product, meddlesome ownership, poor drafting and lack of vision. At this point, being a Leaf fan was like being on some sort of long march to nowhere.


Coming Soon: Part II - Floyd Smith to JFJ (bookends of incompetence).

No Predictions, Low Expectations

Cross-posted from PPP where the fellas were kind enough to ask me for my thoughts on the coming season, instead I gave them this...

No predictions and low expectations. That pretty much sums up my take on the upcoming Leaf season.

This is a year where, with the exception of Nikolai Kulemin and Ron Wilson, the most intriguing story lines will occur away from the ice at the ACC: the development of Schenn and Pogge; the backroom deals struck to bring in more picks and prospects; the on-going (never ending) search for a President and GM; the build-up to the trade deadline; prepping for the 2009 draft; the ongoing efforts to untie JFJ's Gordian knot; and hopefully avoiding the thin (thin!) 2009 UFA pool.

In place of a guess at a win loss record or what odds the Leafs might have of making the post-season, I offer this instead...

What We Can Learn from Cliff Fletcher

The first thing most people remember about Cliff Fletcher’s original tenure with the Leafs: blockbuster trades.

This is the GM that brought the Leafs Doug Gilmour and Mats Sundin; two trades that, in an ideal world, would buy this GM all sorts of latitude from the media, stakeholders and the fans.
This being Toronto, his legendary work is often brought into question by two simple words: "draft schmaft" (proving the lasting value of mnemonics).

The next thing fans are likely to recall is Fletcher dismantling the team. As then-owner Steve Stavros’ grocery empire came crumbling down it necessitated a series of salary dumps and resulted in one of the more recent dark periods of Leaf history (who was a worse coach, Mike Murphy or Paul Maurice? Discuss).

Between the big trades and the eventual decline of this club, Fletcher demonstrated not just a keen understanding of how to build a team, but how to evaluate one.

Fletcher is the first GM I can recall who looked at his team in ten game increments and openly talked to the media about using ten game trends to identify strengths, weaknesses and patterns in his team's play. (This could very well be more a function of having a string of horrible front office staff in Toronto than it was Fletcher bringing something new to the game, the fans and the media. For all I know, Cecil Hart and the Habs were doing this with The Gazette and La Presse back in Chelios' rookie season in 1937).

Breaking the Pain Down into Ten Game Segments

Fletcher's approach back in the day is something we fans could learn from and need to apply to the coming season.

This year the focus should be on player development and team trends over ten to 20 game increments, not on who blew coverage on the PK, which player kicked a sock in anger and how to best quantify the greed of MLSE and the alleged concomitant stupidity of Leaf fans.
Looking at how the Leafs have performed since the lock-out, we fans can do ten games in our sleep. It's also a safe way to approach a year that is likely to set some sort of record for media hysterics.

Mittenstringers, Mouth Breathers and One-Fingered Typists

Despite being covered by one of the largest media corps in Canada, one certainty for the coming season is that we fans will be fed a steady diet of little more than who won, who scored, and who's to blame. The nutritional equivalent of a cheeseburger-in-a-can, quick, easy, and entirely beside the point.

Look for the mittenstringers to second guess every Leaf transaction and to contradict themselves over what's "best" for the team and the players while neglecting to notice that the bulk of the roster is made up of players for the times rather than players for all time. Let's face it, many of these skaters won’t even be wearing the beautiful blue and white leaf on their chest come March.

Considering the transitional nature of the roster, instead of running these players out of town or setting up effigies, I suggest that the Barilkosphere lead the way in looking at the bigger picture.

How much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.

In public polling (or "research" as those in the trade like to call it, don’t know when it happened but it seems pollster has become a bad word) one of the most fundamental questions one can ask it the "right track/wrong track" question. And it’s a question we should likely be asking every ten games leading up to the trade deadline. Is this team on the right track or the wrong track? Are management’s player personnel decisions on the right track or the wrong track? Are Wilson's systems on the right track or wrong track? Is Pogge's development on the right track (65 starts) or the wrong track (benched for Clemmensen in the playoffs)? Are the Leafs acquiring picks and prospects (right track) or dealing second round picks for 15 games of Yanic Perreault (wrong track)?

Let's face it, it really doesn’t matter if the Leafs win 14 or 40 games this year. What matters is how management reacts to the results in the wins and losses column. Building a team that can eventually take a serious run at and challenge for the Cup has to be, must be, at the root of every decision management makes.

Right track or wrong track?

A simple question to keep top of mind for the upcoming season.

A simple question that will hopefully distract us from countless third period melt-downs, rookie errors, and a media contingent that takes obscene delight in the failures of the Leafs and questioning the loyalty of Leaf fans.

Maple Leafs: Are the Fans to Blame?

There’s an interesting cross-post up between Pension Plan Puppets and Down Goes Brown regarding an abominable article by Howard Berger (I’m not sending any traffic to the Bergermeister Meister Berger's blog so you’ll have to locate the article yourself. Hint: it’s really not worth giving him the page views).

Here’s the money quote from Working Class Howard:

“Leaf fanatics constantly bitch about the likes of Damien Cox and Steve Simmons, only to make them the most widely-read columnists in the city… The same Leaf zealots that call me a rotten bastard in e-mails are the first to wonder where my blog is if I skip a day.”

I don’t know what’s happened to Howard, if it was the Avery Cancer thing, his having to buy a ticket to a Cowboys game with his own money while the team he covers for a living – the horrible terrible no good loosing Leafs, millionaires all of ‘em, were treated to a luxury box or if the rise of user-created content, such as blogs and message boards, has resulted in an increased scrutiny that’s too much for the error-prone radio man to bear.

No matter the cause, someone has poisoned the water in poor Howard’s well.

It’s the Love of the Team, Stupid.

Howard's certainly right in that there is an insatiable demand for all things Leaf. And he’s also right in that it’s Leaf fans that make Cox and Simmons two of the most read columnists in Canada.

Where he’s wrong is in implying that the likes of Simmons, Cox and McCown are the most read/watched/listened to because of any special skills or abilities or even their penchant to stir the pot.

These guys are widely read because they file on the Leafs.

Full stop.

If it was Cox and not the content that pulled in readership, his Wimbledon columns would be among the most read at the Star. But when he files on tennis or the Argos you can hear the crickets chirping between his paragraphs.

If it was Berger and not the leafs that drove the numbers, Howard could blog about Montreal limousine companies day and night and still get 200 comments a post.

It's a tough question, but where would Berger be without the Leafs?

Turning the Sites on the Fans

This is where it gets a little tricky.

It was one thing when the mediots went after Ballard, Stavro or MLSE – targets that were (and are) clearly worthy of media scorn - from Ballard’s personal vendettas to Stavro’s cash crunch dismantling of the team to MLSE’s alleged meddling and hiring of JFJ (ugh).

But it’s another thing entirely to go after Leaf fans.

Let’s be clear about this.

The fans have nothing to do with how sports teams ultimately perform (Coyotes, Predators, Capitals, Black Hawks, Islanders and hell, even Jays fans, are staying away in droves. How’s that working out for them? How many Championships have they lined up in the past decade or two?)

The fans don’t make bad trades for questionable goaltending.

The fans don’t decide who gets top minutes on the PK.

The fans don’t sit at the draft table or have input into player development.

And the fans don’t have much of a say in how the media covers the team.

As far as I know, Leaf fans also don’t have editorial positions at any of the major media outlets in this country.

The fans don’t write the articles and columns praising the team when it goes on a middling win streak and the same fans don’t write the columns and articles claiming the sky is falling when the Leafs go on their annual losing streak each January/February.

The fans don’t program the radio stations around call-in shows.

The fans don’t file blog posts based on emails read after a weekend away in Niagara (nice job, Howie).

There’s a great quote from political circles: “Any party that takes credit for the rain, ought to be prepared to be blamed for the drought.”

When the Leafs finally win a cup (and odds are that they will – eventually, maybe not for 100 years, but eventually) will the media let Leaf fans take the credit after decades of blame?

I doubt it.

Re-shaping the Leafs Media Environment

Howie’s bizarre-o world rant brings to mind the whole issue of information dissemination in this age of blogs, discussion boards, media convergence and really good artisanal salami (sorry, my mind drifted there back to my brief holiday in Seattle).

Given the craptacular job done by most of the media contingent following the Leafs, you'd think that fans would be flocking to the official leafs site. They may be, but the blogs I read aren't, I'm not, and I've never had a water-cooler conversation where someone referenced the Leafs web-page (Cox, Simmons and Berger - yes; TorontoMapleLeafs.com - no).

So, in the spirit of Berger’s odd-post, my rather boring communications consulting day job and the fact that no one I know, including MLSE, is properly using the Leafs web-page, here are ten ways the Leafs could revamp LeafsTV, update their web-presence and easily provide more viable, unfiltered and interesting alternative information for their fans and reduce/supplant the role of the increasingly adversarial, cranky and ineffective media:

1. Continue to post unedited news conferences in their entirety (yes, even the inane media questions) on the Leafs Web-site.
   
2. Increase the amount of first-person reporting on Leafs-TV and cross-post it to mapleleafs.com. Why not a weekly (or better yet, every other day) news interview with one of Fletcher, Jackson, Nieuwendyk, Gilmour, scouts, new players, coaches, assistant coaches, capologists, trainers, equipment managers – you name it (Steve Paikan is a big Leafs fan and a great interviewer – let’s give him the part-time gig).
   
3. Conduct more round-table discussions on Leaf topics with players, coaches, reporters, authors and hockey “experts” to be carried on Leafs TV and cross-posted to mapleleafs.com
   
4. Revamp the “Leafs Insider” newsletter to provide balanced informed insightful content and strive to make it more timely (the Leafs dealt for Hollweg and announced their intention to add two more players yesterday, yet I’ve got nothing from my Leafs Insider email newsletter. Nada. Zilch.)
   
5. Cancel the “Leafs Nation” magazine and put the resources into real-time electronic coverage of the team (was anyone out there aware of this magazine? Any of you ever read it?) News cycles are way too short for a long-lead magazine to be relevant or of interest to today’s fans (case in point: you can read about Paul Maurice and get tips from Kyle Wellwood in the latest issue - for those who are interested, Mr. Wellwood's advice is on how to take a pass, not the secrets of a successful all-you-can-eat buffet).
   
6. Get rid of the cronies. Want better coverage on Leafs TV? Fire/ reduce the number of former Leaf players/ barbie-like hostesses and add more insightful/ neutral commentators.
   
7. Hire better bloggers. This is what MLSE is offering fans? Really? That's an official TML blog? Cripes. Has no one at MLSE read Mirtle, MC79, Behind the Net, Fire Joe Morgan, Basketball Jones, Pensblog, etc.
   
8. Take advantage of digital media and make it entertaining. These guys have got it figured out – why can’t MLSE do something like this at the prospect camp? Who wouldn't want to see Luke Schenn take on Kulemin at Jenga or Hungry Hungry Hippos?
   
9. MLSE should be considering the power of Open Data Exchange - opening, hosting and reflecting (and very carefully filtering/refining) the flow of Leafs information that's out there. To wit: "“The winners won’t be those that control the most data — the winners will be those that channel the most data — and those that create the most value on top of the data flow.”
   
10. Quietly seek extraordinary rendition for any writer, blogger, copy desk editor that uses a plan the parade joke.

You Say You Want a Revolution?

Went to the Leafs - Blues game last night, we were lucky enough to get my wife's corporate seats. Yup, corporate seats. I've been to four games this year and three of those were as the guest of large corporations on expense accounts. Which brings me back to this crazy concept that somehow Leaf fans are to blame for the current teams' woes.

Last night, I asked the people around me how they got their tickets ($160 reds). All of them are season tickets held by corporations - the guys to my right got their seats from a car dealership (the ticket holder apparently owns four dealerships); the foursome in front of me were from an ad agency; the two to their left were part of a restaurant chain; and the two to my wife's left were held by a big food multinational (who also have a box at the ACC).

This is something that Dave Feschuk picked up on over at the Star today; clearly it's not the average joe that's filling the coffers for MLSE and padding that oh so comfortable bottom line.

Malibu Stacy may tell us that "math is hard" but let's do a little rudimentary accounting.

The ACC has 1020 platinum seats at $400 each, which generates $400K per game (not including the margins from sushi and wine sales).

In the upper bowl there are approximately 3330 Purple Seats at $37 a pop, generating approximately $120K per game. Fold-in the 300 standing room places at $24 each and you've got an extra $7200 - call it $130K.

Time to compare and contrast: the purple dwelling Leafs Nation lunch box crowd is being outspent by the corporations in the platinums by about $3 to $1.

Put another way: one row of platinum seats generates more income for MLSE than all of the standing room tickets combined.

Now factor in 300 luxury suites. I don't know what the original purchase price or seat licensing costs were, but a 42 person suite rents out for $10K per game and a 57 person suite is $13K. The "cheaper" rental is the equivalent of selling 270 tickets up in the purples, more than 10 rows worth of seats.

So if you think refusing to buy the car flag, canceling Leafs TV and declining those $37 purples will make a difference, go for it. I honestly encourage Leaf fans to vote with their wallets. Seriously. After all, maybe Mike Babcock is right, - it is the common fan that's propping this organization up and keeping them from a re-build.

Looking at the numbers I find it very hard to believe it's so.

###

As for the game itself, Tlusty got banged around like it was the first time he played contact hockey, but I'll give him credit for getting up and staying in the thick of things all night. If he could find a second gear or any type of explosive speed he'd be a far more dangerous player. Tlutsy seemed to play the whole game at half-speed (or else his top speed is really poor). He could find the openings, but his lack of secondary speed kept him from been truly dangerous.

The Tucker, Blake, Stajan line really surprised me. Tucker was great on the forecheck (this from a guy who has pushed to trade #16 for years) but he's an absolute pylon defensively. Blake's through the legs back pass happened right in front of us and was amazing.

As I watched Legace stymie the Leafs time after time, I started undergoing serious cognitive dissonance - had JFJ signed Legace as a UFA, the Leafs would still have Rask plus their 2007 1,2,4 picks and likely would have made the playoffs last year. Of course, that would mean JFJ would still be GM giving me chronic heartburn by screwing this team over in new and inventive ways...

Just Like Punch

Today's column by Damian Cox hits a new low, even for him.

The Maple Leafs just never learn their lesson.

There is no other way to assess the second coming of Cliff Fletcher.

Yup. No single other way to assess a hiring that is less than 24 hours old. No insights to be gathered, no other perspectives to be considered. What you saw at a 30 minute news conference is all that you need to know. Don't wait for any trades or any actual activities from Fletcher - it's over.

Fletcher, history tells us, left the cupboard nearly bare in 1997 because he had traded away young players (Vince Damphousse, Kenny Jonsson), made poor draft selections (Brandon Convery, Eric Fichaud, Jeff Ware) and sacrificed first-round draft picks to acquire high-priced veteran assistance.

Fletcher, history tells us, also pulled off two of the best trades in Leaf history (Gilmour and later, Sundin) landing arguably one of the best skaters to ever wear a Leaf sweater.

History tells us that Fletcher resuscitated a moribund franchise in record time.

History also tells us that, fresh off a Stanley Cup win in Calgary, Fletcher built Leaf club that went to the Conference Finals twice and was a blown high-sticking call away from a Stanley Cup Final.

History may tell us lots of things, but you won't find them in an article by Cox.

Now, in the salary cap era, he's embracing a new religion.

"Without that core of young players you're going to be in a continuing struggle," he said.

But really, that was the case before the salary cap, as well. The impatient Fletcher just didn't want to play by those rules.

Really? The Avalanche shed lots of young talent for vets to build their cup winners. Detroit too. How many players on the '94 Rangers were part of a young core? In the pre-cap big salary days, wasn't it more a case of Fletcher not having to play by those rules?

I swear, had Cox been writing for the Calgary Herald back in '89, he would have led his column on the Flames' Cup victory by bemoaning the loss of Brett Hull.

That an honest man of integrity, Ferguson, was lied to and treated unprofessionally here matters not to the mandarins of MLSE.

Too true. Bet let's also not confuse kindness, integrity and character with competence.

Put another way, there are two types of failure: failures of character and failures of talent. Clearly, Ferguson failed on the talent front and deserved to be fired. Words that somehow didn't make it into Mr. Cox's column.

Moreover, why is it that Cox is all to happy to point out Imlach's and Fletcher's propensity to deal away picks, but forgets to mention that JFJ has dealt away three first rounders and four second rounders in just fiver years as GM.

Then, unlike the gutless Pat Quinn, Ferguson stayed to face the media music and chose to blame no one. A good man, that Ferguson. He's respected in the industry and already a hot commodity.

I sure hope JFJ is a hot commodity and is a GM in this league ASAP, it's the only way the Leafs will ever get rid of Raycroft.

...Fletcher will guide the Leafs through the minefield leading up to the Feb. 26 trade deadline, into this year's entry draft and then into the summer's free agent season.

He could do a lot of good.

Or a lot of damage.

Wow. That is some powerhouse top-drawer big-brain analysis right there folks. That's why Cox is the Star's senior hockey writer. It takes years to develop that level of insight.

Unless, that is, you consider the third option that Cox left out: Fletcher could also be just like that man of super-integrity and character that's such a hot commodity right now named JFJ.

That's right, Fletcher could take the mushy middle ground and trade some veterans for middling prospects (Klee: Suglabov) and then trade picks and prospects for middling vets (2nd, Bell: Perreault).

After nine months on the sidelines, he'll be starting from ground zero. Under Ferguson, the Leafs had been talking to teams for weeks, assessing the market for the likes of Mats Sundin, Darcy Tucker and Bryan McCabe and lining up potential trades.

There were three teams interested in McCabe, more in Tucker. If the meddling MLSE board hadn't stonewalled the process, one or more futures deals might have been done by now.

Instead, Fletcher starts with no deals on the table, a demoralized hockey department in upheaval and 34 days to the deadline. He's going to have to roll up his sleeves and hustle, work the phone relentlessly and put in long hours to get this done effectively.

Um, the hockey staff is still there and if JFJ managed to leave his super-secret decoder ring behind, that "demoralized" hockey staff can let Mr. Fletcher know the juicy details of all these supposed wonderful rainbow coloured franchise saving trades that JFJ had allegedly set-up.

More importantly, that same staff can let Mr. Fletcher in on JFJ's master plan to get guys like Tucker, Sundin and McCabe to waive their NMC and NTCs that JFJ threw around like candy.

Also, what's with the roll-up the sleeves stuff? Has anyone suggested that Fletcher was brought in to lolly gag? I hate this type of lazy writing...the team stinks, the organization stinks, isn't it just implicit that there's a great deal of work to be done? Based on Cox's observation, are we to conclude that if JFJ was still GM, there wouldn't be a lot of work to do? That they could, uh, leave their shirt sleeves rolled down?

When it came to the possible trading of Sundin, Fletcher said: "The most important thing is to do what's right for Mats." Questioned further as to whether it wasn't more vital to do what was best for the hockey club, Fletcher said: "Mats is driving the engine here."

Well, at least we know who's in charge.

Wonder who asked those two questions and got shut-down on the follow-up? Hmmm...

Look, Fletcher's biggest job, one that goes largely unmentioned by Cox, is to get Mats to waive his NTC so that he can be moved before the deadline so the Leafs can re-stock their cupboard of picks and prospects.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks the best way to start that process is by pulling an Alexander Haig and publicly dictating Mats' fate at an introductory media conference. Maybe that's just the way Cox rolls but Cox isn't the one trying to deal the Leafs' premier player.
Perhaps Fletcher will indeed start the logical process of moving veterans and big contracts for prospects and draft picks. There's nothing stopping him.

Moreover, that's what Fletcher now says he believes in.

Just like Punch.

Perhaps Fletcher will start wearing a snappy fedora to work.

Just like Punch.

Perhaps Fletcher will get a shiny gold helmet and ride a police motorcycle.

Just like Punch.

Or maybe Fletcher will take to pumping out 750+ word missives full of straw men, weak logic and commissive truths.

Just like Cox.

The Missing Years

Like pucks lazily drifting past Andrew Raycroft, the reasons for JFJ to be fired are almost too many to count.

The surprise isn't that JFJ’s teams will set a Leaf record for futility by missing the playoffs for three straight years.

The surprise isn’t that a team tagged by its coach as his most talented ever and positioned for a Stanley Cup run is mired in 27^th and on the cusp of a lottery pick.

The surprise isn’t that JFJ took a 100 point franchise and turned it into a soft, underperforming team, handcuffed it with long-term contracts, maxed out the cap and then stripped of its few assets for spare parts.

The surprise is that despite of all this, JFJ lasted as long as he did.

The man was the GM of my favourite team for five years. For half a decade, I watched him run a franchise I’ve followed all of my life and I still don’t have a clue what he was trying to do.

He arrived heralding the stockpiling of picks, but in five years, he traded the teams’ top pick three times and the second pick twice.

He spoke about a new era in developing talent, yet his top pick is playing four minutes a night in the NHL instead of getting big minutes in the minors.

I know that he liked to roll the dice. JFJ habitually sought to acquire high-risk high-reward players like Lindros, Allison, Raycroft, and O’Neill. And in every single case, the risk won. Under JFJ there was never a reward in Leaf land.

For every good contract he signed – Kaberle, Antropov, Poni, Sundin – he signed a bad one: Belfour, Domi, Blake, Kubina, McCabe, Tucker.

People claim his true talent was an eye for waiver wire pick-ups, landing Devereaux, Kilger and Moore. But for every fourth line surprise, there was a fourth line bust: Czerkawski, Pohl, Battaglia, Newbury, Suglabov.

Want to measure his supposed ability to assess talent? Count the number of JFJ acquisitions who can no longer find work in the NHL: Allison, Battaglia, Belfour, Berg, Czerkawski, Green, Khavanov, Lindros, O’Neill, and Slugablov.

I dare anyone to find a comparable list of post-lockout busts signed by a single GM.

In the end, he may be a great guy, a wonderful father and husband. He may have been classy when he knew his time had come, but he set the team I love back years. His incompetence or inability to stand up to the board (or some deadly combination of both) has handcuffed this club for years to come. And for that, I am glad that he’s gone.

He left with the media remarking on his class and his ability to keep his head up. His image ironically buffed by the same mouth breathers and one-fingered typists who called for his head and spent the last month in a daily vigil outside the MLSE boardroom door waiting for the blue and white smoke signaling a new Pope Leafs GM.

JFJ often said he was a reflection of his record, and that’s likely the only spot that he and I will ever agree. If ever there was a truly .500 GM – a man that won as often as he lost – JFJ is it.

JFJ Fired

What a day to be tied up in conference calls at the office...TSN is reporting JFJ has been fired...more to come.

Pension Plan Puppets live blogged the Leafs' Newser with lots of great details.

JFJ is scheduled to speak to the media at 4 PM.

Oh, that plan

Buried in a story from Dave Perkins in today's Toronto Star (16/01/08) is this little piece o' news from JFJ:

"The worst thing we did was finish a point out of the playoffs last year and get the 13th draft choice. The year before we missed by two points and got the 13th pick, which we traded away,'' said Ferguson, clearly indicating that a team gone deep in the tank can at least take solace in eventually landing a top draft choice.

"That wouldn't be the worst thing in the world,'' he said of a quality pick, adding that a plan to sacrifice present for future as a method of rebuilding was proposed a couple of years ago – presumably to the same Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment board of directors now said to be shopping his job around.

"That plan was not approved."

My first reaction to this news: at least he tried, I can't believe the deadly combination of stupidity and greed of the MLSE board.

My second reaction (about 15 seconds later): Why isn't that a direct quote from JFJ? It's contained between quotes, but Perkins doesn't have JFJ actually utter those words...

My third reaction (about 0.5 seconds later): Man, JFJ has failed at pretty much everything he's tried to do during his tenure. He has my sympathy for not being able to get a re-build plan approved by the Board (in his defence, maybe a tag-team of Lamoriello and Burke couldn't get such a plan past Peddie and his minions); however, he still blew it when he was charged with putting a competitive team on the ice to try to win now.

I don't mean to kick a guy when he's down (and I've said repeatedly that JFJ deserved to either be fired or extended - none of this no man's land nonsense that MLSE has engaged in) but when you think about the pressures put on him by the MLSE board, stop to consider JFJ's response. Count the number of players he's signed to play for the Blue and White that are no longer in the NHL: Berg, Khavanov, Domi, Green, Belfour, Lindros, Aubin, Allison, O'Neill...soon to be joined by Raycroft and likely Wozniewski too. That's just off the top of my head and it has to be the most by any GM in the league. Factor in the bizarre-o world trade for Yanic Perrault (how's that 32nd overall pick looking for 15 games of an injured 4th line centre looking now?) and you've got one lousy record of work.

This was JFJ's response to a win now mandate?

It's clear to me that despite the Board not supporting his plan, despite the fact that he may be a great guy, despite the fact that he's being needlessly humiliated and generally mistreated by MLSE - JFJ is still an incompetent GM, he made this mess and he needs to go.

The bigger question (the biggest question really) is: can Peddie/the MLSE Board be contained or will it be more of the same misguided direction and meddling no matter who gets hired to run this club?

Is JFJ Finally Done?

According to Dave Shoalts at the Globe (as of 2:11 PM on January 11, 2008):

It appears John Ferguson will not serve out the final months of his contract as general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
In light of the Maple Leafs' most recent losing streak, which culminated in a 5-2 loss Thursday night to the last-place team in the NHL, the Los Angeles Kings, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment president Richard Peddie said Friday morning that the board will be discussing Ferguson's future very soon. His contract expires in June.

I'll believe it when I see it.

For a man that's alleged to have been fired more often than all of Trump's moronic apprentices combined, Ferguson has somehow managed to hold on to his job, bringing misery and despair to most corners of Leafs Nation.

How JFJ survived this long is one of the deepest darkest mysteries of the Toronto Maple Leafs. His reign of error is right up there with Jonus Hoglund on the first line, drafting thee players from the 1989 Belleville Bulls and why (despite the use of flip charts, sock puppets and singing-dancing animitronic defencemen) Woznieski still can't figure out that it's a minor penalty to shoot the puck over the glass in the defensive zone.

If JFJ is canned (and rightfully so) it will be interesting to see how MLSE can completely botch hiring a replacement and how quickly the interim GM deals away the Leafs lottery pick.

Power of the 'stache

Couple of quick hits...love the McCabe 'stache; hate the shootout. I continue to be puzzled by Maurice's coaching decisions and I need someone far more clever than me to write the slug line for this great photo...

As for other entertainments, whatever drugs Al Strachan has been ingesting - please hook me up.

Did anyone else see the Hot Stove segment when Strachan claimed Glen Healy is up for GM of the Leafs? Does anyone else think somewhere out there a GM just won a bar bet for getting Strachan to repeat that rumour with a straight face on national TV? Unbelievable...

I haven't been posting much as there's really not much to post about with this club. I was at the Monday night loss to the Caps and the team was laughably bad. Horrible.

It should come as no surprise that this year's team stinks as it's pretty much same team that stunk it up last year.

Last year's team couldn't kill penalties, couldn't stay out of the penalty box, couldn't protect a lead and was 25th in goals against.*

Shockingly, the same group of players, coached by the same group of coaches, is still struggling on the PK, still taking way too many penalties, protects a lead like it's a live hand grenade and has a goals against more bloated than Jerry Lewis strung out on prednisone.

Who could have guessed?

But that's not the worst part. The part that's genuinely disturbing is that the vast majority of this team is under contract for next year too.

That's right. If you like this year's club and it's sub .500 record, you'll really love next year's team.

Of the 28 players that have dressed for the Leafs this season, JFJ has signed 24 to contracts that run until at least next year (including team-option RFAs).

Want to know something scary?

Sundin, arguably the Leafs' best, if not second best, player this season is not one of those 24.

Want to know something even scarier?

Six of the seven Leafs D are all under contract for next year too. Only Wozniewski (which I do believe is one of those German or Polish compound words that means "turnover leading to a minus") is not under contract for next season.

Master plan indeed.

*Anyone who thinks injuries were the big difference last year, Woz was nearly 20% of the Leafs' injuries total. I also refer you to the last dozen games of the season when the club had a full and healthy line-up. That group choked against the Isles and Caps, coughed up "safe" leads against the Sabres and Thrashers and was destroyed by the Rangers in a must-win game.

Cue the Ian Hunter...

I haven't been posting media links in a while. I presume that if visitors to my blog are desperate enough for Leaf news that they'll come here, they're already reading the papers.

That said, I think Tim Wharnsby's piece at Globe on Hockey is a great read. My only addendum to the article is how much I hate it when people respond to the notion of firing JFJ with the question, "But who would you replace him with?"

Think about that for a minute.

If someone in your organization has proven themselves to be incompetent and harmful to the company's bottom line, does anyone in your office step up and say:

"Yes, he has missed his targets for four years. His poor decision making skills and lack of foresight on market developments may have handcuffed our organization for years to come. He has consistently changed plans in mid-stream and still failed, but we can't fire him. Who are we going to replace him with?"

Look, I'm not a hockey insider and as such I have no real or informed idea of which hockey executives are available, respected and highly regarded. The same goes for 99% of the people having this conversation, but this is what specialized executive search firms are for.

One last item.

Let's pretend that MLSE has seen enough. After 10 games they have fired the GM and they have hired JFJ as the new GM. (Yes, JFJ - stick with me on this one).

At the news conference announcing his hiring, MLSE state that they honestly believe this team has the talent to not just make the playoffs but to compete for the cup and that JFJ has free reign to make this team better.

Looking at the on-ice talent, organizational depth, the team's play in the first 10 games of the season and the way this team has performed over the past 2 years, what would a newly hired JFJ do?

How would a newly hired JFJ (new-JFJ) differ from the JFJ (JFJ-lite) we have today?

Does anyone believe that new-JFJ would take a totally different approach than the one JFJ-lite is likely to take for the rest of his tenure?

Does anyone believe new-JFJ would look at this team and think - "Once we get healthy, this team is going to make a run and be a serious threat for post-season success."

Personally, I think new-JFJ would act very differently than JFJ-lite and make some serious moves to make this team better. Looking at the team's past performance, it's the only logical conclusion I can come to.

I find it really interesting that the same man might look at the same situation and come to totally different conclusions based on his date of hire...

Silver Fox to help the Gelding?

Following the public emasculation of JFJ, former Leaf executive and HHOF member Cliff Fletcher has thrown his hat into the three ring circus that is MLSE’s search for a senior consultant.

Fletcher’s first run with the Leafs started off with tremendous promise; however, like all things Toronto Maple Leafs, it ended with a whimper and left the franchise in a bit of a shambles.

Given the overwhelming success the Coyotes have experienced with Fletcher in a consulting role (the GM and much of his executive team fired, a $7.5M contract for Jovo, signing Brett Hull, a dismal draft history, the worst finish in franchise history, missing the playoffs four of the last five years…) I can certainly see why MLSE would be interested in bringing his unique vision to Toronto to assist JFJ.

Here’s a quick look at the possible new MSLE tandem:

	Cliff Fletcher	John Ferguson Junior
Nickname	Silver Fox	The Gelding*
Early hockey influences in their careers	Studied at the knee of the great Sam Pollock of the Montreal Canadiens	Roomed with Paul DiPietro with the Fredericton Canadiens
Big Decisions	Engineered blockbuster trade that brought Gilmour to Toronto	Once rented Happy Gilmore from Blockbuster
Respective teams’ winning percentage in the three years prior to their joining the organization	Phoenix 2001-2004 .548	TML 2001-2004 .585
Respective teams’ winning percentage while they were with the organization	Phoenix 2005-2007 .474	TML 2005-2007: .577
Made the playoffs…	20% - Once in five years as GM/Consultant of Phoenix	33% - Once in three years as GM
Great moments in prognostication	“draft schmaft”	"I did not anticipate a year-long [labour] stoppage…"
First and second round draft picks traded while GM of the Leafs	1st to Philadelphia 1st to NYI 2nd to Hartford 2nd to Pittsburgh (and many flips of first round picks to move up and down in the draft)	1st to NYR 1st to San Jose 2nd to NYR2nd to Phoenix 2nd to San Jose (Also dealt former first round pick Tukka Rask)
The Gretzky Connection?	Worked out a deal to make Gretzky a Leaf but was vetoed by ownsership	Still willing to consummate that deal for Gretzky if he can find cap room for Gretzky's salary demands

*not really, but I'm hoping it will catch on

Toskala and Bell headed to the ACC

I was in meetings all day and didn't find out about this deal until 2:10 PM: Toskala and Bell for the Leafs' 2007 1st (moves to 1st in 2008 if San Jose can't get the player they want) and 2nd round picks plus the Leafs 4th round pick in 2009.

First thought: meh.

Second thought: Good thing draft picks and home grown talent are so essential in today's NHL as, for the second time in his four year tenure, JFJ deals away the Leafs' first round pick.

After about three minutes consideration: It's nice to have Toskala to challenge Raycroft and Toskala's cap hit is fine, but he's an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season.

I also have a strong feeling Bell is Jeff O'Neill redux at $500K more per season. No doubt Leaf fans everywhere will be projecting him as a 40 goal scorer, just as the did with O'Neill (memories of Derek King, anyone?).

And my concluding thought: a conditional first, second and fourth round pick seems a bit high - especially if the player San Jose wants isn't available. If San Jose can't get their man, the pick moves to 2008, a draft many are calling the deepest in years - comparing it to the very robust 2003 entry draft.

With the signing of Carlo (a great deal, IMHO) the Leafs cap situation now looks like this:

12 Forwards: $20,111,000

1. Antropov
2. Belak
3. Bell
4. Devereaux
5. Kilger
6. Pohl
7. Ponikarovsky
8. Stajan
9. Steen
10. Sundin
11. Tucker
12. Wellwood

7 Defence: $19,671,000

1. Colaiacovo
2. Gill
3. Kaberle
4. Kubina
5. McCabe
6. White
7. Wozniewski

Raycroft: $2,000,000
Toskala: $1,375,000

Belfour's Buy-out: $770,000

SUB-TOTAL: $43,927,000

Cap room remaining: approximately $4million (presumes a $48M cap with some flex room)

Still to sign: Williams (RFA minimum salary $557,000)

Remaining cap room best guestimate: $3+ Million

A culture of losing: Compare and Contrast

In the final minute of game 2 of the Eastern Semi-Finals, a rather blatant foul on LeBron James was ignored, the Cavs went on to lose the game 79-76 and went down 2-0 to the Pistons. When asked about the non-call, Coach Mike Brown said: "The officials get paid a lot of money, and that's their job. If they don't see anything, they don't see anything. We're a no-excuse team. We've got to get ready for Game 3."

When asked about that same non-call LeBron James stepped up and said: "We're a no-excuse team, you know, and we can't look at the last play as why we lost. We've just got to get better."

When asked by Canadian Press to provide a post-mortem on the Leaf's most-recent season, JFJ said "We were number one in the league to man games lost to injury in what turned out to be the toughest division in the East and probably in the league to qualify."

When asked about the impact Sean Hill's delayed suspension had on the Leafs and Islanders, JFJ said, "For sure I think we would have made the playoffs."