(CP)
Thursday, May 8, 2008

TORONTO—The face-lift has begun for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“You’re going to have new management, you’re going to have new coaching, and you’re going to have a number of new players,” interim GM Cliff Fletcher said yesterday.

“This is the start of a new era for the Maple Leafs.”
Fletcher fired head coach Paul Maurice yesterday morning—not a total surprise after two years out of the playoffs. The veteran caretaker Fletcher felt it was important for the next GM to start fresh.
“I think it was obvious that new management would want new coaching,” Fletcher told a news conference at the Air Canada Centre.
“Ideally, the new person who is going to be here in the future should be the one selecting the coach because they have to work together,” he added.
“Obviously it has to be someone that the new general manager is comfortable working with and someone who the new coach is working with as a manager.”
On this front, it appears the Leafs have learned a lesson. When John Ferguson was hired as GM in the summer of 2003, he inherited a coach in Pat Quinn. It was an awkward situation from the get-go.
While not mentioning that situation specifically, Fletcher made it clear he doesn’t think that method works.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he stressed. “Because they have to work together, and they have to interact with each other and know each other.”
Maurice, for one, was not completely caught off guard when Fletcher informed him of the decision.
“You know the way the season ended up and the changes that are going to take place on the team,” Maurice told The Canadian Press yesterday. “So I was very aware that it was a possibility.
“I can’t say that I was surprised.” Fletcher met with the board of directors of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment on Tuesday and his request to fire Maurice was rubber-stamped.
Assistant coach Randy Ladouceur also was fired while assistant Dallas Eakins has been offered a position elsewhere in the organization. Keith Acton will remain as an assistant.
Fletcher also announced Mike Penny, the assistant GM and director of hockey operations, would become Toronto’s director of pro scouting.
“The board approved the plan yesterday [Tuesday],” said Fletcher. “As the general manager of the hockey club, I laid out a plan.
“The one thing we can’t do is be spinning our wheels in sand. The organization has to move forward,” he stressed. “There are decisions that have to be made.”
The next big decision is finding a permanent GM. A search committee spearheaded by Toronto lawyer Gord Kirke has yet to find its man.
Anaheim Ducks’ GM Brian Burke was widely believed to be the No. 1 choice but when the California club announced he would be serving out his contract through next season, MLSE knew it had to wait at least a year for him.
A source said yesterday that MLSE has asked the Vancouver Canucks for permission to speak with former GM Dave Nonis, who was fired in April but is still under contract with the club.
A call to Nonis was not immediately returned.
In the meantime, a new coach won’t be hired until a new GM is found. With Ottawa, Atlanta, and Florida already looking for a head coach and possibly other NHL clubs soon to create coaching vacancies, are the Leafs risking losing out on some top choices?
“I think the coaching job of the Toronto Maple Leafs is the plum in the National Hockey League,” said Fletcher. “And I feel that any serious candidates won’t mind marking time a little bit until our situation is resolved.”