Snooze-fest keeps Leafs in suspense
Damien Cox, The Toronto Star
Published: Tuesday, January 22, 2008Five weeks from today, the NHL will call a halt on the season's trading activity. So far, it has been the dullest campaign for the movement of bodies in memory, with Doug Weight's move to Anaheim as part of the salary-clearing process for the un-retiring Scott Niedermayer the most significant deal.
Still, there's rampant optimism that the Feb.26 deadline will bring oodles of trade opportunities and activity.
In this climate of uncertainty in the industry, with only 35 days left to make some critical decisions, there is only one NHL club humming and hawing over significant management changes - and that would be the Maple Leafs.
And you wonder why it's 41 years and counting.
Thirty NHL clubs, including the Leafs, will have teams of observers in Edmonton today and tomorrow for the top prospects game. The reality, however, is that Leaf executives Mike Penny, Jeff Jackson, Doug Gilmour and Garth Malarchuk will be sizing up the kids not at all sure whether they'll have influence or even jobs by the end of the week.
By then, it might be the Cliff Fletcher Show, an encore presentation.
Forget for a moment that Fletcher is the wrong guy for the job. The basic fact is that every day wasted in the process of tinkering with the Leaf management team increases the fact the club won't have enough time to stabilize and do a very good job of moving and receiving assets prior to the trade deadline.
A week of dithering by Richard Peddie and Co. last week probably chopped off the extra time the club had to make a big management move.
Anything after this week is just too late.
Under John Ferguson, the Leaf executive team has been working assiduously to lay the groundwork for a series of pre-deadline moves, particularly if it's crystal clear a playoff berth is unachievable. Indeed, insiders suggest that internally the Leafs have decided they've got to make their choice in a week to 10 days, not a month from now.
But if Fletcher, let's say, arrives next week, then all those plans are no longer in play. It's his game and his game plan, assuming he has one. Those who were in the room back in March 1994 when Fletcher was a man in full panic on deadline day without a deal to make until he hastily pulled the trigger on the Mike Gartner-for-Glenn Anderson swap with the Rangers might tell you he's not the cool trading cucumber some would tell you he is.
Oh, yes, the Rangers won the Cup, while the Leafs were swamped in the Western Conference final by Vancouver.
Meanwhile, scouts and other Leaf hockey people loyal to Ferguson may have to ascertain whether they want to immediately pledge fealty to the new hockey king of the ACC. After all, they all may be unemployed by June.
Intelligent clubs, of course, get all this sorted out in the off-season, or at worst in the early part of the season. The Dallas Stars did that, dumping GM Doug Armstrong in favour of Brett Hull and Les Jackson and, lo and behold, the Stars are humming along, first in the very, very tough Pacific Division.
Not MLSE, however, and not the Leafs. The arrogance of these people knows no bounds. They think because they can sell condos and sucker people into watching a horrific expansion soccer team that they know the right way to get things done in the hockey world.
They don't and they've proved it.
The fact MLSE is snoozily rearranging the deck chairs on this year's Titanic-like voyage is just another way of expressing their utter disdain for customers and fans.