See Ya, Pat

Before I get rolling on this, I just want to make a few things perfectly clear: He was a good coach - you can't be in the NHL as long as he has been without being good - and in a tough year in Toronto, he did a pretty decent (some would go so far as to say a "good" job) with some bad parts...

But here's the kicker: He only managed to do a good job.

Bob Gainey has done an excellent job in Montreal, taking over from Claude Julien halfway through the season. Ron Sutter has done a superb job in Calgary by first taking a #8 seed that barely made it into the playoffs just one goal away from the Stanley Cup and then making them even better this season. Tom Renny has done a fantastic job in New York, turning a team of underperforming veterans into a fast-paced youngish team that not only has almost all the right parts, but is a legitimate Stanley Cup contender.

Pat Quinn just barely managed to take a team that was barely afloat to just under the playoff bubble in a frantic late-season win streak - yes, a good job, but not nearly enough to compete in the new-look NHL.

Nevermind this streak of postseason births for Toronto; the Blues managed to get in for 25 seasons in a row and it did a whole lot of good for them; they're now at the very bottom of the league with nothing but one classic game on ESPN Classic Canada (1986 Conference Finals, Game six against the Flames) a few honored numbers (#14 Wickenheiser, #2 Al MacInnis, #11 Brian Sutter) and a few memories to show for it: No Cup Finals, no rings and barely any Conference Finals (1986, 2000).

Pat Quinn, for better or worse, is a lot like that: He's taken his teams to the postseason many, many times but has never won a Stanley Cup - he took the Islanders to the limit in 1980 and later took the Canucks to a seven game series against the Rangers in 1994, but was never that close with the Leafs - not even against the Hurricanes in the 2000 Conference Finals.

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"Everyone is responsible" - John Ferguson Junior, on the 2005/06 Season

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Who is responsible for the failure of the Leafs, not just this year but for seemingly every year. I wasn't alive when the Leafs last won a cup; my father wasn't even the age I am now. But every year the fans of the Leafs seem to think that maybe this is the year, that maybe this trade is the one we needed, that maybe it'll all work out this time... And every year it never does.

Pat Quinn has shown that the Leafs fans that he is a good coach - but he was never quite good enough, if you know what I mean. He was good enough to get us there year after year but was never good enough to win there year after year. He was a bad GM in his short time in Toronto - who can manage to forget the bad taste left in our mouths after Phil Housley and Doug Gilmour went down in their first game with the team, never to play another game in the NHL. He's proven that he is stubborn when relied on experience over potential time and time again, seeking to give the Leafs a band-aid when they needed stitches - Even this season he almost pulled one of his old tricks, trading for Luke Richardson when the Leafs needed some help on their blue line.

He never seemed to learn his lessons until it was too late - time and time again he would trade away draft picks, prospects and the like for experienced players that just never seemed to pan out or to play for any length of time at all; and that was his undoing.

Nevermind the streak then; his legacy with the Leafs will not be how many wins they had, how many times they made the playoffs or what prospects they hung onto - it will be for his participation in the trades and signings for players that so helped the Leafs: Alexander Mogilny, Phil Housley, Eric Lindros, Wendel Clark, Doug Gilmour, Ron Francis, Brian Leetch, Ed Belfour, et al.