*Staring Into The Blue & White Abyss: Part 2

Part 2: The Present

Where were we? Ah, yes, we left off with the Toronto Maple Leafs having been mired in a vicious cycle of underachieving teams that are constantly overestimated in their proximity to competitiveness. John Ferguson Jr. led the charge as Leafs GM through the first four and a half post-lockout years, bumbling his way through a series of awful roster decisions en route to getting politely asked to F-off in January of 2008. Brought in to pick up the pieces was senior citizen discount card holder Cliff Fletcher, who did his best to help set the table for eventual predecessor Brian Burke but ultimately helped compound the team's problems rather than address them.

The one move with the most lasting effect on the current edition of the Leafs was the hiring of Ron Wilson. It's common practice for a team in a period of transition in the front office to allow the incoming GM to hire his own coaching staff. It's his team, why shouldn't he get to hire the staff he thinks best suits his intended style of play? In their desperation to land the established GM, the Leafs hired Burke's close friend Ron Wilson in the hopes that it would lure the burly cup-winning executive. Whether it did or not is a mystery, but Burke did resign from his post in Anaheim for the "plum job" in Toronto.

I'm not suggesting that Ron Wilson is a bad coach, but it put Brian Burke in an awkward position going forward, no matter how good an idea it seemed to be at the time.


Burke came into Toronto like a pimp comes into a whore house. With swagger, self-assured confidence, and promises of a better future if you'll comply with his style of business. Like noble prostitutes we gave him every bit of our trust, and he knew exactly how to handle us. He allowed us to believe his spiel about us not being far off from success, but in a few short months Burke had decided the charade was over and began to clean house.


At the top of Burkie's shit list were the unreasonable contracts on the roster, like Jason Blake & Vesa Toskala, both of whom were promptly shipped out (Burke employed a similar strategy in Anaheim, ridding the team of bulky contracts like that of Sergei Fedorov). Shedding contracts that bad is a win in itself, but Burke really branded the team with the Dion Phaneuf deal.


In one foul swoop Brian Burke changed the face of the Leafs for years to come, by acquiring Dion Phaneuf, Fredrik Sjostrom, and Keith Aulie, in exchange for four pilons. They had shed a few underachievers with bad contracts, for a possible stud defenseman, a solid penalty killing specialist, and a prospect who looks and plays like Chris Pronger's illegitimate love child, faster than you can say "plan the parade".

That momentum led him right into a deal that would be viewed as the pivotal point of his Toronto tenure; During his first training camp as Leafs GM he sent out two first round picks and a second round pick for Phil Kessel. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The Leafs had the general notion (as they had pretty much every year since the lockout) that they were "one legitimate sniper away" from being a playoff contender, and the valuable picks given up were deemed expendable as the team was ready to compete now. The result? Dead last in the eastern conference and one of the worst seasons in team history. Maybe my math is off, but I'm pretty sure the Leafs could have finished dead last without the help of Phil Kessel and his brand spanking new five year contract.

Poor finishes usually pay dividends in the draft, but instead the Buds handed over the second overall pick (Tyler Seguin) to a division rival who was already stacked at the forward position.

The heat was now on for Burke to put something tangible together over the summer, because another cellar-dwelling season would be viewed as a massive failure.

The tough part of navigating this market is not succumbing to the overwhelming outside pressure when people are clamouring for change, and Burke did not get Rob Babcocked into another bad move. He played his cards safely, holding onto top asset Tomas Kaberle, and shaping the team in his image by singing free agents like Colby Armstrong, Mike Brown, and Clarke MacArthur, who all have become solid contributors to the organization in different ways. Kris Versteeg was also brought in via trade and has become the team's best two way forward, and has plenty of up side.

Despite an improved roster, it's a long way up from the bottom and the Leafs bumbled through the first half of the 2010-2011 season. Fans were growing increasingly restless and could be heard chanting "fire Wilson" at several poor home games. The feeling began to grow around hockey's most knowledgeable fan base that the team had been lost to Wilson and his sarcastic attitude, and that the players were no longer buying what he was selling. The standings seemed to agree.

The All-Star break rolled around and the Leafs were again sitting near the bottom of the eastern conference. Phil Kessel, the Leafs not-so-worthy All-Star representative, had the unsavoury distinction of becoming the first player to be chosen last in the NHL's new fantasy draft selection format. It was a not-so-subtle slap in the face to the organization, and if there ever was a rock bottom for this team, certainly this would be as close as they could come. Or was it?

Less than a week later a league-wide player poll showed that 24% of players in the league had voted Ron Wilson as the coach they would least like to play for, and with thirty coaches to choose from that is a pretty hefty percentage. If Wilson's loss of credibility was in question before, surely it couldn't be now. Phil Kessel put the exclamation mark on an embarrassing fortnight by publicly calling Wilson out on his bullshit when he told a scrum of reporters "me and Ron don't really talk...that's all I have to say about that". Bitch move? Yes, but maybe this will finally be the straw that broke the camel's back.

Wilson needs to go, and no amount of Anaheim Duck-fleecing is going to change that (really, how many different ways can we screw that team? Toskala. Blake. Now Beauchemin for Lupul, Gardener and a pick? Thanks losers! Might as well call you the Anahaim SUCKS!).

As the standings sit today, the Toronto Maple Leafs are in twelfth place, seven points out of a playoff spot, and barring a comeback of epic proportions, will miss the playoffs yet again. Brian Burke has done an admirable job rebuilding this team with very little assets to speak of, but until he gets up the gumption to let his BFF Ron Wilson go, this team will not compete going forward. There are options on the horizon, and if they're not taken advantage of soon then Toronto is as doomed as any pimp-ho relationship. The ho winds up ODing on whatever junk she's been strung out on, or simply facedown in a ditch somewhere, all used up, and if she isn't dead, she'll be void of any emotion or ability to return to a normal existence. The pimp? Well he just finds a new btich and keeps on pimpin', baby.

I'll talk more about some of the options for improvement facing the blue & white brigade in my final installment, part 3: The Future. Until then, you stay classy Toronto.

*Staring Into The Blue & White Abyss: Part 1

The relationship between the Toronto Maple Leafs and their obsessively rabid fan base is a little bit like being married to an abusive alcoholic; one has chronically self-destructive personality traits, and the other is hopelessly dependant on their spouse, no matter how many times they get smacked around, publicly humiliated, or occasionally pushed down a flight of stairs. The dysfunctionality is so embarrassingly obvious to the rest of the world and those who watch closely shake their heads and say "how pathetic"...but they just don't understand. This is what true love is about.

The state of affairs have grown increasingly out of hand in Leaf Land ever since the lock-out, and with each passing season one may think they certainly must have bottomed out. Astoundingly, the Leafs continue to strive for new lows in their perpetual quest to master the art of sporting futility, and over the last few weeks massive strides have been taken in the search for rock bottom. Unfortunately Toronto doesn't seem have a rock bottom to find. Welcome to the abyss.

Where to begin... An overpaid, overrated new captain, a goalie-of-the-future who can't maintain any semblance of confidence or consistency, one of the most expensive blue lines in hockey allowing a pitiful goals-against average, woeful special teams units that are among the worst in the league, a slew of high-priced long-term contracts shackling management, a laughable selection of centres and bonafide scorers, and the least-likable coach in hockey who evidently doesn't communicate with his snake-bitten star sniper. A star sniper who helped his team get a public smack in the face by rightfully being selected last in the all-star fantasy draft. Let me catch my breath.

To understand this monolithic cluster funk one must first examine the route this team has travelled to arrive to where they are today. This will shine a light on the problems of today and the potential solutions of tomorrow.

Part 1: The Past

The last time the Toronto Maple Leafs were associated with respectability was the last season before the lock-out. A collection of seasoned veterans put together a 100+ point season before being promptly bumped off by a Jeremy Roenick wrister in the second round of the playoffs. When the lock-out ushered in the salary cap era, the way the Buds do business was drastically affected. No longer would they be able to throw money at high-end star veterans in their attempts to contend. This was the beginning of the John Ferguson Jr. experiment.

JFJ was a rookie general manager in the most pressure-laden market in the sport. His hiring was mistake number one. He promptly threw big-money, long-term, no-movement contracts at players he deemed to be the back bone of the future. Players like Bryan McCabe, Darcy Tucker, Jason Blake, Pavel Kubina and even *ahem* Jason Allison. He traded away a blue-chip goalie prospect in Tukka Rask for a walking, talking, fail named Andrew Raycroft. When Raycroft flopped he brought in an even bigger fail named Vesa Toskala, and signed him for big dollars. This pattern of handcuffing himself to poorly performing players, and neglecting the most important position on the ice, the goaltender, began a downward spiral of epic proportions.

Perhaps the biggest bumble of all was allowing Toronto's all-time leader in points, Mats Sundin, to walk away in free agency for nothing, receiving no return via trade for their greatest asset.

To his credit, JFJ was a scout by trade, and drafted some solid players during his tenure, like current Leaf bright spots Nikolai Kulemin, Luke Schenn, Carl Gunnarsson, and James Reimer. His failures were not in finding new, young players, but in handling the one's he currently had and properly assessing what his squad needed.

Under Ferguson's regime the Leafs went from being one of the top teams in the east to missing the playoffs a franchise record four straight seasons. Upper management finally got the hint and fired Fergie before the season was out, bringing in former Leaf GM and current somebody's-great-grandfather Cliff Fletcher, but the damage was already done. The franchise had been tied in an unimaginable knot that is to this day still being untied.

As the team transitioned into the interim Cliff Fletcher phase, there were several questionable moves made. The mandate was to set the table for the new GM, and although seemingly addressing the problems at hand, Fletcher lacked the foresight needed to truly allow the new manager to make the team his own. For example, trading a top asset in Alex Steen was, in retrospect, a failure as the return of Lee Stempniak paid little dividends. The hiring of Ron Wilson as the new head coach was also ill-foreseen. The move was viewed as a strategic form of enticement for the team to land their coveted GM-to-be Brian Burke. Burke and Wilson are long time friends, former college room mates, and Wilson is even the godfather of one of Burke's children.

Eventually the Leafs did land the highly-regarded Burke, but in their efforts to woo him, they had unintentionally shackled him to a coach who has drastically under-performed, and because of their deep ties to one another, Burkie is far less likely to give Wilson the desperately needed axe.

This is only one of many problems plaguing the 2010-2011 edition of the Maple Leafs, and I'll dissect this and many more aspects of the current state of Leafs Nation in part 2 of my mini-series: The Present.

Stay tuned for the next installment, and if you're a die-hard Leafer like me, try not to succumb to the suicidal urges that are forced upon our fragile psyches. The one trademark of blue & white fandom is blind, loyal and utterly unsubstantiated hope. No reason to change that now.