JFJ

While the chaos out of Toronto has stiffled somewhat in the last few days, possibly due to no nationally broadcasted games since Saturday and none on the Pay Attention To Us We Have Headlines TSN since the 27th. The controversy over whether the Leafs dysfunctional upper management will fire John Ferguson Jr. is both absurd and frustratingly typical of Toronto media. Here's all my reasons why this is all stupid:

Paul Maurice is a good coach, Stanley Cup finalist in 2002, and judging from the success by those average-at-best Hurricane teams, an above average strategist and motivator. Yet when you watch the Leafs this year, which even in Western Canada is sometimes impossible to avoid, they've failed when they take too long to get the puck out of their zone, their defense doesn't react fast enough, they don't take the easy play off the glass, and their forwards start moving up ice too soon leaving a gap that forces long and risky passes. The solution, of course, is to fire the GM. Wait. What?

It's true that General Managers never used to receive the kind of scrutiny they do now, the salary cap has forced their attention to detail to be much more finely tuned than in the past. Knowing that players will inevitably leave via free agency means they have to pick and choose which players they'll keep long-term and which ones they can afford to let go. That responsibility is doubled since any player you commit to long term you run the risk of them not panning out and becoming untradable. Draft record is also more important since younger players, being cheaper, are more likely to be thrown in right away since free agency has been cut back to 25. This evolution means that GM's are judged more on short-term success than before and thus is the argument used to justify firing JFJ. There's logic in this type of GM evaluation of course, but look at the reality of the JFJ noise. The rumours were at their highest following Toronto's shootout loss to Montreal last Tuesday, with predictions that if they didn't win in Atlanta he would be fired, and have since subsided with the Leafs winning their last two. If they lose another three in a row, you can bet TSN will be debating JFJ's firing all over again. The issue is stupid because it reflects the panicky nature of Leafland, not any kind of rationality. Yes GM's are now judged more on a short-term basis, but not THIS short-term, not game to game or week by week. The team's losing because Blake isn't scoring (except for a couple recently, but he's on pace for just 9), the team defense is poor, the goaltending isn't good enough to consistantly win games on their own, and their powerplay is awful. Underperformance from the players is the reason why they're losing, and that's the coach's responsibilities. But no, Maurice is exempt from firing rumours because he's funny with the media?

In this past off-season, JFJ upgraded his goaltending and brought in a 40 goal-scorer to play with Mats Sundin. Last year Raycroft was pretty harshly criticized and the Leafs' secondary scoring has always been an issue, so two holes were seemingly filled. The expected improvement from Wellwood, Steen and Stajan meant that Maurice was probably justified in saying before the season started that they were a playoff team. Wellwood's injury was a considerable setback that really hurt them on the powerplay and McCabe's inability to avoid mistakes at the point turned last year's formidable powerplay into this year's liability. Basically, the problems with this team are detail problems, not GM problems. Firing GM's midway through the year isn't helpful, it won't "jump-start" the players, and it won't bring back draft picks and prospects lost through the years (yes lots of those were JFJ's fault, he's not perfect by any stretch). Judge your GM at least a year at a time, if they don't make the playoffs this year you can legitimately move on and go in a different direction since it has been four years. Stop leaving him in limbo, stop coming out and saying hiring him was a mistake, if you're not firing him then tell the hockey world that nobody's being fired and stop wasting our time with stupid rumours from the stupid Leafs when we should be blogging about the Oilers first three game win streak of the year.

Last note to the Leafs and media: the Leafs' GM position is not the equivalent of Head Sunscreen Applicator for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition Inc. You can't just name a bunch of to names and expect them to leap at the honour and priviledge of running your crummy team with hysterical fans and dysfunctional boardroom. Brian Burke just won a Stanley Cup in California and therefore his life, despite a crippling coprolalia affliction, is perfect. Kevin Lowe, as suggested by Sportsnet's Alan Adams last year as a "must-hire" for the Leafs, is also not interested and signed a four-year extention in Edmonton. Neither are Scotty Bowman, Wayne Gretzky or Jesus, they have better things to do than sweat their employment and reputation over a six-game losing streak in November.

***Edit: What I really want out of all this is for JFJ to quit on his own and take a job with either Ottawa or Montreal.