This just in.  The Toronto Maple Leafs have fired head coach Paul Maurice.  I'm not particularly surprised by this because someone has to be the scapegoat for the poor decisions made by management and ownership.

Maurice was the fall-guy for Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) and their incompetency just like Pat Quinn two years ago.  MLSE should have realized two seasons ago, when they fired Pat Quinn, that the GM, John Ferguson Jr, was more to blame.  How can a coach be expected to succeed when he is provided with sub-par talent on the ice?

It is a pitiful situation with the Maple Leafs now.  They don't really have anything in the way of prospects (because they have all been traded away for aging players on the edge of retirement).  The players they have now just aren't good enough to go anywhere.  They've got tons of money wrapped up in essentially useless players, and the only players with any value have no-movement clauses in their contracts.  Bleak times indeed.

Where do the Leafs go from here?  Maybe they can get lucky in the draft.  Do they make an offer to any young free agents?  Jeff Carter is an RFA, and is someone worth making an offer to in order to start building the team around, but will Cliff Fletcher (or whomever his replacement may be) risk the ire of opposing GM's by sending Carter an offer sheet?

I'll admit I'm pretty embarrassed to be a Leafs fan.  Ownership has jerked us around so much with false promises, and only doing "just enough" to get the team into the playoffs and help line their own pockets.  Leafs fans have been jerked around for over 40 years now.  And it looks like we'll be jerked around another 40 years...

All that money and no sense...