This wasn't a great season for Muckler, and I could understand firing him. He made the terrible Gerber acquisition, lucked into Comrie (remember that he was originally going after Petr Nedved, which would have been awful) and didn't do what his boss wanted him to do at the deadline. Melnyk never hired him in the first place; he was already there when Melnyk bought the team. Throw in the fact that he doesn't get along with Bryan Murray (who Melnyk did hire) at all, and it's not hard to see why he'd be let go, finals or no finals.