Alright it looks like Fletcher is starting to move fast. He seems to be making some hasty decisions as of late, which I think is his subtle way of asking me for help. First, lets see what Fletcher has done so far.

Fletcher Hires Ron Wilson as Head Coach
Solid move. I liked Paul Maurice as coach but he just didn’t seem to get his team going. Ron Wilson has proven to be a good coach, and bringing anyone new tends to light fires under players who have lulled themselves into playing mediocre at best.

Leafs Acquire John Mayers from St. Louis
Now, we only gave up a third round pick to get him so no biggie either way really. I don’t know this guy very well but looking at his stats is not promising. He’s a combined -60 over the last three seasons. In fact, he hasn’t plus-season since ‘02-’03 when he was a +1 through 15 games. Unless Fletcher has some magical talent juice he plans on slipping in the water bottle I’m expecting Mayers to be with the Marlies.

Some would argue he’s a 4th liner. However, if you’re willing to trade away phenomenal 4th liners like Wade Belak I don’t know why we’re acquiring guys like Mayers.

Leafs move up in draft to select Schenn
Great move. The real talent was in the top 5 this season and even though this means we only moved up two spots (we had 7th overall prior, Schenn was picked 5th) it was a good move. Won’t effect the team this season, but still a good a move.

Leafs place Raycroft and Wellwood on Waivers
Good thing for Raycroft. We took a gamble that he would return to his spectacular form of two years ago and he disappointed immensely. Why we traded Rask for him in the first place still boggles my mind.

As for Wellwood, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!. He underperformed last year, sure. However he was dealing with injuries. This guy has shown amazing hands and vision on the ice and is someone we could have kept around for under $2 million. This is the type of guy you take a chance on. Vancouver has already picked him up off waivers and I have a feeling this will come back to bite us in the ass. Big mistake Fletcher.

Leafs buyout Tucker
Another mistake. Tucker just needed someone else on the team to get him pumped up and playing with his patented fire in his eyes. We need another guy with a similar mentality which would allow them to feed off each other and energize the team. I have one man in mind, but I’ll cover that in Part II.

Fletcher’s getting a B+ in my books so far. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt with the whole Tucker/Wellwood thing and hope he’s got something up his sleeve as far as signings go come July 1st. My recommendations in Part II (I know, you can’t wait…)