Cliff Fletcher will always be remembered for the mega deals he swung that defined franchises. Bringing Lanny McDonald to the Calgary Flames helped make that team one of the best of the 1980s, and few transactions in the history of hockey instantly legitimized a club the way Fletcher’s move to acquire Doug Gilmour in a 10-player swap suddenly turned the Toronto Maple Leafs into an early-1990s contender.
Of course, those who worked closely with “Trader Cliff” know the transactions that came to fruition were merely the tip of the iceberg.
“He was always cooking up deals, and a lot of them were never consummated,” longtime lieutenant Al MacNeil told Sportsnet in a 2012 interview. (MacNeil passed away in 2025.) “He was an idea guy.”
Fletcher, who broke into the National Hockey League scouting for the Montreal Canadiens in the 1950s, passed away Friday, the Maple Leafs announced. He was 90.
The first general manager in Atlanta Flames history, Fletcher stayed with the franchise when it moved to Calgary in 1980 and had been on the job for almost two decades when the team finally won the 1989 Stanley Cup. Following a transition to Maple Leaf Gardens as president and GM of the Buds in 1991, Fletcher dramatically overhauled a moribund squad and turned it into a Gilmour-led outfit that came within a single victory of making the 1993 Cup Final and advanced to the league semifinal in 1994, too.
After serving as a senior member of front offices in Tampa Bay and Arizona, Fletcher returned to temporarily take control of the Leafs when GM John Ferguson was fired in-season during the 2007-08 campaign. He remained with the franchise until his passing.
Fletcher will be remembered for numerous traits, the most blatant of which was a boldness that made the NHL a more fun and interesting place.
“He wasn’t afraid to pull the trigger,” MacNeil said.
Though he certainly had strong convictions, Fletcher was by no means an impulsive pirate looking to raid other clubs. MacNeil — who filled various coaching and front-office roles for Fletcher — said his longtime boss always wanted deals to be win-win, so he could more easily do business down the road with a fellow GM. Fletcher never made moves without first leaning on staff members he often forged personal bonds with.
“There aren’t many guys you’ll talk to who will say they didn’t like working for Cliff,” MacNeil said. “He cared more about your family than you did.”
Fletcher worked alongside giants of the sport. He cut his teeth as a scout for a Habs team headed up by legendary GM Sam Pollock and was an assistant GM on the expansion St. Louis Blues, who were coached by Scotty Bowman. By the time Fletcher held the top job in Atlanta, the next generation of managers were apprenticing under him. One of Fletcher’s first hires in Georgia was David Poile, who went on to spend a combined 40 years as GM of the Capitals and then Predators before retiring in 2023.
Working under a red and gold billboard that read, “The Ice Age Cometh to Atlanta, Get Your Tickets Before the Freeze,” Poile tried to soak in everything he could from his new tutor. The Flames had a three-person scouting staff, and Poile said the meticulous files they kept on players from all sorts of amateur and pro teams were probably “revolutionary” at the time.
Far more standard — at least for a while — was the practice of the young guy with the no-pressure position breezing into the big office and spouting off about what moves they should make to improve the club.
“As an assistant general manager, I would come into his office every day and I would [say], ‘Why don’t we trade this guy? Why don’t we do this?’” Poile recalled. “He was always very patient with me. One day — it was after we lost — I came in the office, and he wasn’t in a good mood, I came in and said, ‘Why don’t we do this? Why don’t we do [that]?’
“All of a sudden [he slams his hand down], looks up at me and — I remember this — he pointed his finger at me and [said], ‘If you are ever so lucky to become a general manager in the National Hockey League, you’ll know what it is to make a trade and how difficult it is.’ I kind of walked out with my tail between my legs.”
Fletcher found ways to keep Atlanta reasonably competitive despite never operating with a sizeable budget. By the time the Flames were cresting in Calgary, he had to figure out how to put them over the top. One of the final touches had nothing to do with acquiring a new player, but rather hiring his old friend, Gerry McNamara, to scout for the Flames after the latter had been let go as Leafs GM.
Today, hockey teams do extensive homework on future opponents, but advanced scouting wasn’t nearly as common in the late 1980s. Still, Fletcher had McNamara — whose preference was to stick close to home — covering games and teams a little outside the boundaries of his agreed-upon region.
“I don’t think he even saw Toronto,” MacNeil said with a chuckle, recalling how McNamara traversed the hockey map on Fletcher’s request. “It was a hell of a great idea by Cliff. He was a step ahead of a lot of guys. We had a real good book on the whole NHL and won the Cup.”
By the time Fletcher and the Flames raised Lord Stanley’s mug as NHL champions, Poile was GM of the Capitals. But he made a point to be in the Montreal Forum that May night in 1989 so he could see his old teacher win the trophy. And he would have been just one of many people who broke into a grin on Fletcher’s behalf.
“You’re talking about one of the good guys when you’re talking about Cliff Fletcher,” MacNeil said.
