Fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs are happy to put January 2015 in the rear-view mirror and hope that a 4-3 effort against Nashville (though still a loss for the Leafs) is a positive omen that February will be a much better month.
The facts are the facts, though, and January 2015 goes down as one of the worst months in Toronto Maple Leafs history as the team went 1-11-1 in 13 games. Unbelievably, it was the worst offensive month in Leaf history, as the team averaged just 1.23 goals per game after leading the entire NHL in scoring when the calendar flipped to 2015.
When Sportsnet statistical guru Steve Fellin listed other comparable months in Leaf history for this kind of cold streak, I too well remember the front row seat I had in those times.
January 1988: The Leafs were 1-11-3 in 15 games. They entered the month winless in their last three December games (0-2-1) and lost the first three games of February as well. A huge rift evolved between Leafs’ GM Gerry McNamara and coach John Brophy. Owner Harold Ballard (84 years old at the time) was curiously absent from the picture as he struggled with health issues and then disappeared to the Cayman Islands for much of January.
Upon Ballard’s return to Toronto, he fired McNamara over the phone on Sunday, Feb. 7, as McNamara tok the call from a pay phone in the Hartford Civic Center, where he was watching the Leafs’ morning skate. The Leafs lost the game that night to the Whalers. Toronto had an abysmal 1-17-4 record over a 22-game stretch.
McNamara was replaced on an interim basis by a GM triumvirate of Brophy, Floyd Smith and myself.
January 1989: A year later, I was the general manager and after a great 8-3-1 start through our first 12 games, as Brian Burke would say more than 20 years later, “the 18-wheeler went off the road.”
George Armstrong replaced Brophy as head coach on Dec. 19, 1988. The Leafs finished with a 3-3-0 record in the final six games of December 1988, but it would be another brutal January with a 2-8-3 record in 13 games. The Leafs did win their last game in December and their first game in February that season.
I left the Leafs GM post after that season and Floyd Smith took over. George Armstrong stepped down as Leafs coach and Doug Carpenter took over.
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October 1990: After a very solid bounce back season in 1989-90 (which included a first round playoff loss to the St. Louis Blues), the Leafs recorded just one win in their first 11 games of the 1990-91 season (1-9-1) and finished 2-10-1 in 13 October games. Carpenter was fired as Leafs coach and replaced by Tom Watt.
November 1990: Things didn’t get much better as the Leafs recorded a 3-12-0 record in 15 games. Eddie Olczyk and Mark Osborne were traded to the Winnipeg Jets on Nov. 10 for Dave Ellett and Paul Fenton.
Floyd Smith was feeling heat on a different front as the Leafs had traded their first-round draft selection a year earlier to the New Jersey Devils in exchange for Tom Kurvers. At this point it was looking as though the Leafs had a decent chance of finishing dead last, which meant the New Jersey Devils would have been able to draft Eric Lindros with Toronto’s pick.
On Nov. 17, a somewhat “panic” trade was made to ease that fear (along with better hockey played by the Leafs after November). Scott Pearson and two second-round draft choices were traded to the Quebec Nordiques for Michel Petit, Lucien Deblois and Aaron Broten. Losing these three veterans helped the Nordiques in their quest to finish dead last and allowed the Leafs to finish one spot higher.
At season’s end, Floyd Smith was shuffled back to the scouting department and replaced by Cliff Fletcher as GM.
Toronto’s puny offensive output of 1.23 goals per game in January of 2015 broke the record of 1.25 goals per game the team averaged in February, 1927. The modern day low was 1.42 goals per game, which came in the month of February, 1968. This was the year after the Leafs’ last Stanley Cup victory and the team would begin a five-year-plus downward spiral.
The situation wouldn’t be helped by GM Punch Imlach’s reaction to the February scoring woes in ’68. On March 3, he traded Frank Mahovlich, Peter Stemkowski, Garry Unger and the rights to Carl Brewer to Detroit in exchange for Norm Ullman, Paul Henderson and Floyd Smith.
Enough of the unfortunate Leaf history lesson for now. Time for the Leafs to turn a page…literally and figuratively!
