C’mon, how many of you weren’t expecting this? Honestly, the timing is a bit strange since I thought it would be sooner rather than later but at least the rest of Canada can now live in peace without having Leafs news crammed down our throats by the “Center of the Universe” media.

It’s tough to blame all of the Leafs troubles on John Ferguson Jr. even though Toronto is, as of today, six points out of the playoff race. That doesn’t sound like much but with the new parity in the NHL, a six point margin makes it real difficult to catch the teams in front of you unless they have a monumental collapse.

No, the blame can also be placed on the owners and their absurd situation where no one has any real power to do anything without consulting the entire Maple Leafs Entertainment ownership group. One can also blame the Toronto media and Leafs fans as JFJ’s actions were really just a reflection of their own flawed logic, going for quick fixes at the expense of the future. For the last several years, the Leaf’s draft picks have been terrible and very few have made it to the big club. Rather than building from within, the Leafs go out and sign aging, overrated players like Jason Blake and give everyone else absurd contracts with no-trade clauses.

The greatest tragedy out of all this is perhaps that Ferguson deserved a little better. The Leafs were clearly looking for his replacement while he was still employed and regardless of what you thought about the job he did, no one deserves that level of disrespect in a professional environment.

As for Ferguson’s successor? Many pundits point to Brian Burke, the current GM of the Anaheim Ducks. This may seem strange since Burke still has a year left on his contract with the Ducks but this may actually work out for everyone if he decides to jump ship. Of course, he’s unlikely to be fired since he just built a team in two years that went from a bunch of overpaid, overrated players to a Stanley Cup champion but there are ways that Burke could be GM of the Leafs by next season.

For one thing, he is probably the ideal GM for the troubled franchise. When he arrived in Anaheim, the moves Burke made paid immediate dividends. For one thing, he managed to dump the $6m salary of Sergei Federov, who had been underperforming for years and had a contract that made him basically untradeable. Bringing Chris Pronger from Edmonton gave the Ducks the most formidable blueline (with Scott Niedermayer) in the league. This sort of action could be just the juice that Toronto needs.

There’s always the issue of the year remaining on Burke’s contract but if he wants out of it, I’m sure Toronto could adequately compensate the Ducks. Let’s face it, if the Leafs want Burke, they’ll wait the extra year to get him. I’m sure Burke also wants the job as the man loves the spotlight…and there’s no bigger than the one in Toronto.