• Moderators, please send me a PM if you are unable to access mod permissions. Thanks, Habsy.

Kinda OT - What is Cliff Fletcher's role?

F

Fitzgerald#11

New member
Was thinking about this the other day.. he is listed as a special adviser on the Leafs site.

Like how many days a week is he in the office?

What input does he give on any players, moves, transactions?

How much does he make a year?
 
senior-elderly-old-man-surfer-surfing-in-waikiki-beach-hawaii_41iskill__F0000.png
 
These guys are pretty good. Enter CH1 for 20% off promo code.

slider-toronto-pi-logo.png
 
Yeah, I'd be surprised if anyone could give you a definitive answer on this, with how leak-proof and shrouded in mystery the Leaf front office has been since Shanahan arrived. I do know that whenever the TV cameras pan to the Leaf management box, you can often see Fletcher in the background. So he does actually seem to be around a bunch.

As to his role in the decision-making process, my pure guess would be that he's not involved too much.

I would suspect that Fletcher would be somewhere between "another voice in the room" to "amiable 82 year-old that Shanny & co. keep around on a nominal salary because he's an elder statesman in the hockey world/Leaf oganization, they would feel bad about firing him, and figure it wouldn't be worth the potential PR blow-back they'd get".
 
LeafGm said:
Yeah, I'd be surprised if anyone could give you a definitive answer on this, with how leak-proof and shrouded in mystery the Leaf front office has been since Shanahan arrived. I do know that whenever the TV cameras pan to the Leaf management box, you can often see Fletcher in the background. So he does actually seem to be around a bunch.

As to his role in the decision-making process, my pure guess would be that he's not involved too much.

I would suspect that Fletcher would be somewhere between "another voice in the room" to "amiable 82 year-old that Shanny & co. keep around on a nominal salary because he's an elder statesman in the hockey world/Leaf oganization, they would feel bad about firing him, and figure it wouldn't be worth the potential PR blow-back they'd get".
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have no clue at all, but would expect that he would essentially show up in the office whenever he wants to. Probably gets CC-ed on some email chains, maybe will occasionally reply if he has something to contribute.
 
I just have this feeling of a scenario where its the draft meeting and everyone is going over there lists and he walks in the room and starts blabbing about this prospect from the 90s that he thinks his draft eligible cause he doesn't know what year it is. Like "guys we need to take a look at this kid Ryan Smyth, he's going to to be a good one" and everyone else in the room is quiet and Dubas says "yes Cliff, thats a great idea lets add him to the top of our board" and then Cliff leaves the room and everyone is like, alright lets get back to work like this happens all the time.

anyways maybe that;s mean but but made me chuckle
 
Fitzgerald#11 said:
I just have this feeling of a scenario where its the draft meeting and everyone is going over there lists and he walks in the room and starts blabbing about this prospect from the 90s that he thinks his draft eligible cause he doesn't know what year it is. Like "guys we need to take a look at this kid Ryan Smyth, he's going to to be a good one" and everyone else in the room is quiet and Dubas says "yes Cliff, thats a great idea lets add him to the top of our board" and then Cliff leaves the room and everyone is like, alright lets get back to work like this happens all the time.

anyways maybe that;s mean but but made me chuckle
Click to expand...
I wouldn't really be surprised.

I mean, without even trying to make light of the condition---even as far back as his stint as interim Leaf GM (which amazingly, was over 10 years ago), when listening to the guy speak in public (including that creepy press conference where Richard Peddie was mouthing the exact words Fletcher was speaking) and in looking at the moves he made, I honestly thought the guy was senile.
 
LeafGm said:
I wouldn't really be surprised.

I mean, without even trying to make light of the condition---even as far back as his stint as interim Leaf GM (which amazingly, was over 10 years ago), when listening to the guy speak in public (including that creepy press conference where Richard Peddie was mouthing the exact words Fletcher was speaking) and in looking at the moves he made, I honestly thought the guy was senile.
Click to expand...

Was he in charge during the Jeff Finger signing? Wasn't there a story out that they had mistaken Finger for someone else?
 
We must have at least 1 registered member of the old boys club at all times and wendel hasn't qualified yet.
 
Most likely is that he's there simply for contacts and connections. He puts the old in old boys club. He knows just about everyone there is to know around the league.

Odds of him providing meaningful input on day to day ops are very slim.
 
MindzEye said:
Most likely is that he's there simply for contacts and connections. He puts the old in old boys club. He knows just about everyone there is to know around the league.

Odds of him providing meaningful input on day to day ops are very slim.
Click to expand...

This is my vote. He's still got enough buddies around the league to be worth the salary.
 
Fitzgerald#11 said:
Was he in charge during the Jeff Finger signing? Wasn't there a story out that they had mistaken Finger for someone else?
Click to expand...
Yeah, a hockey writer at the time laid out a pretty good case that Ron Wilson & Cliff Fletcher had Finger confused with his teammate Kurt Sauer, who was also a UFA.

And funny enough, Sauer signed for exactly half what the Leafs paid Finger (4 years/$7M, as opposed to 4 years/$14M for Finger).

And Sauer sucked too, in the end. He played one year of his four-year deal, and then he was pretty much out of the league.
 
LeafGm said:
Yeah, a hockey writer at the time laid out a pretty good case that Ron Wilson & Cliff Fletcher had Finger confused with his teammate Kurt Sauer, who was also a UFA.

And funny enough, Sauer signed for exactly half what the Leafs paid Finger (4 years/$7M, as opposed to 4 years/$14M for Finger).

And Sauer sucked too, in the end. He played one year of his four-year deal, and then he was pretty much out of the league.
Click to expand...

The only issue is it wasn't supported by the more legit media
 
unfortunately, as popular a story as that is among Leaf fans, it doesn't really pass any kind of serious thought.

it's not like Cliff unilaterally would make that decision. a whole bunch of people, not just Fletcher, would have to have confused Kurt Sauer with Jeff Finger for that to happen.
 
I dunno. It seems crazy, but I don't think it's totally implausible.

The Leafs were running a pretty bare-bones hockey operations department at the time they fired JFJ. That was the whole reason they had to drag a sun-tanned, half-senile Fletcher out of retirement to take the interim gig in the first place. So there wouldn't have been anything resembling the due diligence and layers of decision-making that are in place now.

When the decision-makers in Leaf-land sat down to make their plans that summer, for the most part it would have been just Fletcher & Ron Wilson in the room. And it was apparently Wilson's "expertise" they leaned on heavily when they signed Finger & Niklas Hagman that summer, since Wilson was fresh off having been the head coach in San Jose for five years, and both those guys were Western conference players.

And I totally believe that Wilson was enough of a dope to have confused Finger & Sauer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top