Well, they finally did it. The Toronto Maple Leafs put John Ferguson Jr. out of his misery and fired him from his position as General Manager of the team.

Ferguson has been a dead man walking for about a month now. There's no way they were going to allow him to make any significant moves once they figured out that this current roster was the sports equivalent of a flaming zeppelin crashing into a freight train (although I'm sure New York Knicks fans beg to differ).

My favourite part of Tuesday's press conference was when Richard Peddie, president and CEO of Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, said, "Regrettably, we did not win enough games to reach our goal, winning the Stanley Cup." I can relate, Richard. Regrettably, I did not get a chance to have sex with Gisele Bundchen before I got married. I figure that our chances of achieving those goals were about the same.

Did Ferguson deserve to get canned? Consider his three most significant moves in the past two years. He traded for goalies Andrew Raycroft (in 2006) and Vesa Toskala (in 2007) and yet the Leafs are 27th in the NHL in save percentage. Last July, he signed winger Jason Blake to a five-year, $20 million contract after he scored 40 goals the previous season for the New York Islanders. In his first 49 games with the Leafs, Blake has scored nine goals. With this kind of track record, I'm not sure his wife should trust John to pick the movie next time they go to Blockbuster.

Cliff Fletcher has stepped in to fill the GM position in an interim role, which I take to mean that he'll stick around until the end of the season and then probably hand the reins over to his successor. In this five weeks leading up to this season's NHL trade deadline on Feb. 26, Fletcher's primary task should be convincing Mats Sundin to waive his no-trade clause so they can ship him to a contender for prospects and/or draft picks.

I know Sundin has repeatedly stated he wants to retire as a Leaf, but Fletcher should argue that he'll be helping both his old and new teams if he agrees to a trade. His new team will gain a proven scorer and veteran leader – and the Leafs will finally be able to begin a proper re-building process.

Tuesday was probably John Ferguson Jr.'s last day in his life as a General Manager for an NHL team. Some of you might feel bad for him, but it's a tough business and Leafs fans have suffered for long enough. As I wrote two weeks ago, I'm an Oilers fan and yet I actually feel sorry for Leafs fans for the first time in my life.

Now, Richard Peddie and Cliff Fletcher will attempt to do for the Toronto Maple Leafs what Peddie and Wayne Embry did for the Toronto Raptors two years ago. Embry created salary cap room and used his connections to lure Bryan Colangelo to join the Raptors as General Manager. Colangelo quickly converted a laughingstock franchise into a team of talented young players with legitimate championship aspirations in the near future.

Can Peddie capture lightning in a bottle a second time? I don't know who could be the NHL's equivalent to Colangelo, but you'll know that Peddie has the right idea if Ferguson's permanent replacement is somebody with a proven history of winning. Some people have discussed Scotty Bowman as a possibility, but Bowman appeared on Hockey Night in Canada on Jan. 12 and claimed that he was close to taking the job... but was turned away by Peddie.

That sound you just heard was the sound of Leafs Nation collectively groaning. On the website firerichardpeddie.com, one frustrated fan puts it thusly: "Let the weasel build condos, but HANDS OFF MY LEAFS!" Don't hold your breath on that, Leafs fans. Flush with success over the Raptors' resurgence, he's surely going to have a hands-on approach to hiring the new GM.

Oh, and in response to all the e-mails I get and will continue to get asking why Peddie gets to keep his job? Don't look at the standings, look at the balance sheet. According to Forbes magazine, Peddie has tripled the enterprise value of Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment during his nine years in charge, and the "crown jewel" hockey team remains the most valuable franchise in the NHL.

So I think it's safe to say that, no matter who the Toronto Maple Leafs hire as the next GM, you're probably going to continue to have Richard Peddie to kick around for as long as he wants the job.

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