Leafs opt to revisit the past, plus Crosby's absence

Cliff Fletcher was responsible for the Maple Leafs' most recent successful era, but has warts on his resume. AP

MAILBAG Michael Farber will periodically answer questions from SI.com users in his mailbag. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

As fired Toronto Maple Leafs general manager John Ferguson Jr. finishes his last meal -- our personal favorite in Toronto is the sea bass at Il Posto Nuovo -- it is time to turn our eyes to his interim replacement, Cliff Fletcher, who formally was named Tuesday to clean up the elephant turds around the great Maple Leaf circus.

A wise choice?

Well, there is a maxim, perhaps introduced by the great American writer A.J. Liebling, that when it is late at night and you've have a few too many drinks, you should suppress any instinct to phone up an old girlfriend or boyfriend. The point is, you shouldn't want to relive your past, a notion that translates to the sports world. Sure, you can go home again if you want to -- Joe Gibbs in Washington and Marv Levy in Buffalo didn't exactly get to the Super Bowl in their sequels -- but maybe just for a visit.

Fletcher certainly is an important figure in the Maple Leafs' past -- the architect of teams that reached the Conference final twice consecutively in the early 1990s, which, given the franchise's inability to win the Stanley Cup since 1967, represents what passes for glory years. Of course, Fletcher also presided over the decline immediately thereafter, culminating Toronto's 68-point season in 1996-97, his last as GM.

When someone has been around as long as the 72-year-old Fletcher, a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, you parse his curriculum vitae at your peril. So what matters more, winning a Cup with the 1989 Calgary Flames or trading Brett Hull? Is it more important that Fletcher and coach Pat Burns helped pull Toronto off the slag heap and get the Leafs to within one game of a dream final against Montreal in 1993 or that the heretofore woeful Phoenix Coyotes dismissed him as their top advisor, allowing him to scurry off this month for a Mexican vacation with his wife?

In the end, Fletcher's actual track record wasn't the issue. Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment made a decision based on faith -- the faith in Fletcher, who sort of looks like a GM, you know? -- to clean up a mess that is largely but not solely of Ferguson's making.

As Paul Holmgren's presto-change-o with the Philadelphia Flyers at the end of last season demonstrated, a team can improve itself with alacrity with some bold, judicial moves. Holmgren wheeled a gimpy Peter Forsberg to Nashville for Ryan Parent, Scottie Upshall and picks, turned draft picks into impending free agents Kimmo Timonen and Scott Hartnell, signed a high-end free agent in Daniel Brière, picked up a new captain in Jason Smith from Edmonton and now has the makings of a solid playoff team. With Toronto primed for a similar makeover, Ferguson might not have been light enough on his feet to disengage from his bad trades and worse contracts, including wildly overpaying for defensemen Bryan McCabe and Pavel Kubina, dealing for goalie Andrew Raycroft and signing free-agent winger Jason Blake, never a dressing room favorite, after his contract-year, 40-goal breakout with the Islanders.

The most critical piece of the puzzle, however, is captain Mats Sundin. The 37-year-old, eligible for unrestricted free agency on July 1, has a no-trade clause, which he has shown no inclination to waive. But Sundin, having another stellar season, does have a relationship with Fletcher, who brought him to Toronto from Quebec in the Wendel Clark trade. Theoretically, he could be more malleable if Fletcher approached him than Ferguson.

Maybe Sundin will approve a deal to Vancouver or elsewhere and, on July 1, re-sign in Toronto, continuing the morally bankrupt but increasingly common lend-lease program that is all the rage in the NHL. The thinking is that Fletcher, who will have input into hiring the next GM and then stay on as an advisor, could be more adept at this kind of tap dance and extract a better package of players and picks than Ferguson, who was embarrassed by MLSE boss Richard Peddie's remarks that hiring him had been a mistake, and the team's public flirtation with veteran hockey men such as Scott Bowman and John Muckler, but always kept his own counsel. Classy.

The only certainty is that Fletcher and his successor -- Peddie said Toronto sports lawyer Gord Kirke will be part of the search team - have been saddled with incompetent bosses and a sub-par scouting and player development system. You can't get rid of MLSE. You can, however, blow up scouting and development. With money pouring into this mint of a franchise, and a limit on what it can spend annually because of the salary cap, you should redirect a chunk of it and simply hire the best scouts out there. You want quality Europeans, then throw stupid money at Hakan Andersson, who works for the Detroit Red Wings. For North America, jump through hoops to steal someone like the San Jose Sharks' Tim Burke.

Whether Toronto has an overnight turnaround like the Flyers or has to sink even deeper in the gunk in order to get better, such as the Chicago Blackhawks, scouting must be the backbone of the organization by 2010. Even Fletcher, who once uttered the famous phrase "Draft, schmaft" knows that.

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