Leafs Give Maurice the Boot - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

As an American observer of the NHL, it can be hard sometimes communicating just how important the Toronto Maple Leafs are to the league. What we're talking about is the league's top franchise in Canada's top media market. By all reliable measures, the Leafs are the most valuable franchise in all of hockey.

And given Canada's linguistic schism, for many years, the Leafs were simply the team of all of English Canada, permanently pitted against their greatest rival, the Montreal Canadiens. To this day, you have large pockets of Leafs fans all over Canada, one of the reasons why it's so important for teams out West to expand the intraconference schedule, and get the Leafs to make regular road swings to Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.

Which is why the firing of Paul Maurice as Leafs head coach after just two seasons is really big news. Sure, for any other run of the mill team that had missed the playoffs three years in a row and hadn't won a championship in over 40 years, this sort of news is expected pretty regularly. But this is the Toronto Maple Leafs we're talking about, and the position of head coach is arguably one of the most stressful jobs in all of Canada outside of Prime Minister.

Even the head coach of the New York Rangers, arguably the second-highest profile job in the league, doesn't have it nearly as rough as the Leafs head coach. Heck, if the Rangers get off to a slow start, the news media might very well be occupied with the Jets or Giants, or even better, all the troubles involved with running the Knicks. But as Leafs coach, there's really nowhere to hide. Your team is always story #1 in the papers, on TV and on sports talk radio -- outside of those rare cases when the Argos play for the Grey Cup or that far off day when the Raptors become serious contenders for an NBA title. Otherwise, you're right in the crosshairs from the moment you get up in the morning till you go to sleep at night.

When you look at Maurice's record, it's hard to argue against replacing him. 76-66-22 might look a lot like .500, but in the new NHL, it just puts you on the outside looking in come playoff time. Then again, it's not like he's had a lot to work with -- especially in goal. When he took over just two seasons ago from Pat Quinn, it was clear the Leafs were an aging club that had a number of promising prospects. Still, neither general managers John Ferguson, Jr. nor Cliff Fletcher could get Maurice much help for a team he was expected to more or less lead back to the playoffs.

With one year left on his contract, perhaps Maurice will be happy to have some time off where he doesn't have to think about being public enemy #1 of so many hockey fans across Canada. What isn't clear right now is the near-term direction of the entire organization. Fletcher is still the interim GM, but with Brian Burke out of the running, there doesn't seem to be any Plan B when it comes to finding somebody to run the team. And with only about seven weeks remaining until the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, that's not exactly optimal.

It's hard not to look at the Leafs as an organization that's horribly adrift -- something most Leafs fans will probably find all too familiar. Remember, going into this year's trade deadline, it looked like the team was finally bracing itself for an inevitable rebuild. WIth plenty of veteran assets to deal, it looked like Toronto could have expected a pretty significant return at the deadline to get a headstart on what we all know can be a painful process. It was then that all of those expensive vets with no trade clauses decided that they wanted to stay, after which they played just well enough to hang around the playoff conversation, but never really did anything dramatic enough to actually fight their way into the postseason.

I know, same old Leafs, same old excuses. It's hard not to feel for their fans. Anyway you look at it, this is a franchise that should be playing for Stanley Cups with regularity. Instead, they just feel a lot like the New York Jets of the NHL.