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Top 5 Most Hated Toronto Maple Leafs Members of All-Time

By Stephen Nixon

BOSTON, MA - APRIL 21: Jake Gardiner #51 of the Toronto Maple Leafs reacts after Sean Kuraly #52 of the Boston Bruins scored during the second period of Game Five of the Eastern Conference First Round in the 2018 Stanley Cup play-offs at TD Garden on April 21, 2018 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
BOSTON, MA - APRIL 21: Jake Gardiner #51 of the Toronto Maple Leafs reacts after Sean Kuraly #52 of the Boston Bruins scored during the second period of Game Five of the Eastern Conference First Round in the 2018 Stanley Cup play-offs at TD Garden on April 21, 2018 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images) /
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Toronto Maple Leafs
TORONTO – OCTOBER 13: Toronto Maple Leafs vice-president and general manager John Ferguson (L)   (Photo By Dave Sandford/Getty Images) /

#2. John Ferguson Jr.

For the last two people on this list, we’ll be reverting to executives, instead of players because we can’t talk about “hate” and the Toronto Maple Leafs without these two.

I was going to put Andrew Raycroft in there instead of JFJ, but that didn’t seem fair. It felt like the person in-charge of acquiring him seemed more fitting for this list because even the players on the team hated JFJ. If you don’t believe me, tune into TSN’s Overdrive and hear what Jeff O’Neill thinks of Ferguson Jr. I can “neither confirm or deny” that he was a terrible G.M. for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

When JFJ joined the Toronto Maple Leafs, that was the day that everything kind of went south. During his tenure as an executive, he fired Pat Quinn, signed Jason Blake to a terrible contract and most famously traded away Tuukka Rask for Andrew Raycroft. As we previously spoke about before with Raycroft, it’s tough to get mad or hate Raycroft as a player, because the G.M. made the terrible move.

It’s much easier to get angry at Ferguson Jr. for setting the franchise back 10 years with that one move. Speaking of terrible decisions that fans continue to talk about today is the “Muskoka Five.” If you’re unaware of this group, it was built up of Mats Sundin, Tomas Kaberle, Darcy Tucker, Bryan McCabe and Pavel Kubina, who JFJ had all given no-trade clauses to.

By giving all five of those players no-trade clauses, it gave the G.M. little leverage to rebuild the franchise. As was their right, non of those players waived their no-trade clause and the Toronto Maple Leafs had to let their contracts expire, instead of trading them for assets. Not only was the Tuukka Rask deal unacceptable but those five contract clauses are one of the reasons it took so long for the team to be good again.

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