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Leafs president Richard Peddie making big predictions, wants Stanley Cup ring... somehow

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This is the sort of story where haters of the Toronto Maple Leafs are going to get a big laugh and work on their most snarky way of saying, “Good luck with that.”

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment president and CEO Richard Peddie has a special deal worked out in his retirement plan. With Peddie retiring at the end of the calendar year and after a history of running the Maple Leafs without the team winning a Stanley Cup, he wants to make sure he can get something to remember his days with the Leafs by on the chance they win it all.

Peddie has it set up so he’ll receive a Stanley Cup ring if the Leafs win it all after his retirement. The catch with this deal is that the Leafs have to win it all in the next three years to give him some hardware. The Toronto Sun’s Lance Hornby gets the details from Peddie.

“My retirement agreement is that I get a ring if we do it in the next three years,” Peddie said on Saturday, adding with a laugh “the next guy is going to get all the credit and get his name on the Cup. Which is cool, because I think hockey is the only sport where the suits get their name on the trophy.

“I’m down to 17 weeks to go, but who’s counting? It has been a lot of fun and we’ve done a lot of good things, even though we haven’t won. I feel really good about our four teams, Aron (Winter’s) makevover of TFC and I love what Dallas Eakins is doing with the Marlies. Brian Burke (Leafs) and Bryan Colangelo (Raptors) have some good quality players. I just wish they would have won while I was here. But I’m sure our fans are going to see some winners.”


Peddie is so sure that Toronto is going to see some winners that he’s making a big prediction for the Leafs for this season. Peddie tells Steve Buffery of the Toronto Sun that the Leafs are going to do something they haven’t done since 2003-2004.

Okay, let’s get this out of the way: Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Ltd. President Richard Peddie guarantees that the Leafs will make the playoffs this season.

“Absolutely,” Peddie said, when asked if he was certain about his prediction. “But I guess Burkie’s going to kill me now.”


At the very least Brian Burke will grumble at him and say something snarky. I guess that makes Burke the blogger of team executives. At least he doesn’t live in his mom’s basement, right? After all, it’s not as if Peddie is going to be around at the end of this season to face up to his prediction so you might as well go out thinking highly and leaving some of the fans feeling beyond hopeful.

Scary part here though is that he might be right. Adding Cody Franson and Matt Lombardi from Nashville could turn out to be a huge acquisition. Franson will help the Leafs blue line and their offensive production right away while Lombardi is aiming to be back this year after missing almost all of last season with a concussion. If Lombardi can come back and produce offensively the way he’s capable, the Leafs offense is a lot deeper. Throwing him in there with Phil Kessel and Nikolai Kulemin to go along with Mikhail Grabovski and Tim Connolly and the Leafs could be a threat to crack the top eight in the Eastern Conference.

Of course, the fact that Peddie gets a Stanley Cup ring if the Leafs win it all in the next three seasons makes this a bit more amusing. With the Leafs having missed the playoffs of the last seven seasons and often looking really bad in losing, the jokes are there to be made. That said, if Burke can get the Leafs turned around soon, Leafs fans might be all right with Peddie getting one more piece of jewelry to send him on his way.