New Leafs By Next Week?

Crazy to think Brian Burke could be running the show with the Maple Leafs by this time next week.

Or earlier.

This thing's going to move very, very quickly, and Burke has made no bones about the fact he intends to not take even a single day off. He wants to get started on his next job immediately.

Two things we know, or at least most sensible people know.

One, Burke is the best man available to do the job. If not the best man period, he is available. Hockey isn't like the real world in which you can just go out and hire who you want. It's an industry filled with tampering rules, and one in which the best executives in the game shake loose only occasionally, and never in large numbers.

Two, there's no guarantee Burke will be successful in Toronto, at least if you define success as winning a Stanley Cup, not putting together three victories in a row in mid-December.

The same would be the case if it was Ken Holland or Doug Wilson or Jim Rutherford getting the job. No guarantees of ultimate success.

Burke might not be able to do any more with the Leafs than he was able to do with the Vancouver Canucks, which was assemble a good team that wilted in the spring.

But let's get one thing straight. He was very much the architect of the championship won in Anaheim.

It drives me nuts the number of people who have emailed and, in effect, stripped Burke of any credit for the Ducks winning it all. That argument suggests that Bryan Murray did all the legwork, that Jean-Sebastien Giguere was already there and both Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry had already been drafted.

It is an argument for utter morons.

Folks, every manager builds on what was done before. Well, every manager except Lou Lamoriello, who's been running the show in Jersey so long that every decision over the past 20 years has his fingerprints all over it.

But in Anaheim, Burke surely built on what Murray had established. He pulled it all together, hired Randy Carlyle to coach,brought in Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger and Francois Beauchemin for the back end and gave the teams it's rough-and-tumble personality.

Every success story in the league has its roots in what was done before. Even now, as Cliff Fletcher is getting all kinds of kudos for putting together a team that can almost win half its games, you'd have to give John Ferguson some credit for signing Nik Antropov, trading for Vesa Toskala and drafting Nikolai Kulemin. In San Jose, where the Sharks have the best record in hockey, some very good things were done before Wilson arrived as GM in 2003.

Its the same story everywhere. So while you might not endorse the choice of Burke as the next Leaf GM or like his preferred style of hockey, its just silly to try and rob him of any credit for what was done in Anaheim.

Can he win in Toronto? Don't know. The guess here is he can give this team a vibrant identity and make it into a solid playoff team in three years. Beyond that, who knows? He'll get his shot, and if he can't do it in five or six or seven years, somebody else will get their shot.

Comments

[Giller]

"It's an argument for utter morons"! Awsome! I love that. We keep hearing it over and over. How bad Burke is. Yeah, most of that is coming from Non-Leaf fans who are now worried that, well, here we come! What fun will it be to not have MLSE to kick around now that Burke will kick them to the side? What will those Leaf-haters have to bash now?
Leafs getting Burke = league wide respect. A true hockey organization. Now the whole "only in it for the profit" argument takes a back seat too!

[maxie]

Interesting Damien that you report Burke wants to get at it immediately and not take a single day off. A few minutes ago, I heard a national sports TV channel analyst report that Burke is looking to get away from it all, relax... go hunting the weekend....

[RCoutts]

Kudos for a balanced and accurate description of Burke's record and his likely impact in Toronto, should that come to pass. I would, however, like to see you give Cliff Fletcher some credit for the job he has done in unwinding some of the mistakes of the past and putting this team on a better path than the one he inherited. Similarly, I find your occasional comments of his previous association with the Leafs completely devoid of respect for the way he turned that franchise from an awful team into a team that was one game ( and one horrible missed call) away from a Stanley Cup final against a team they had handled during the regular season. I suspect their is something here beyond a purely professional and objective view of Mr. Fletcher and the job he has done with the Leafs over the years.

[Kevin]

How did Anaheim manage to win the cup? With their "rough-and-tumble personality", as you called it, Damien. As much as I dislike the Senators, I don't think they deserved to lose that series as badly as they did. The Ducks may not have been the fastest team, or the most finessed, but they were the roughest. If the suits at MLSE make the mistake of hiring Burke, expect the same in Toronto. Yes, there may well be new Leafs by next week. Don't expect a new team modeled after players like Crosby or Ovechkin, though. It'll be more in the mold of Bertuzzi, Hollweg and Domi.

[Zane]

Calling your readers "utter morons" is not good for business, and disrespectful as well.
I agree with you...Burke had a lot to do with Anaheim's championship, and every manager does build on what was done before.
The thing some people may feel is how much weight do you give to the current manager's dealings vs. to what he started with. Obviously you feel (as do I ) that Burke's contribution was very significant to their championship, while those that disagree think Bryan Murray's leadership had more to do with it.
That may not be correct, but it doesn't make holders of that viewpoint "utter morons"
Just something to think about.

[N.F. Pereira]

Memo to: R. Peddie and Leafs BOD. I'd think long and hard about hiring Mr Burke at the completely insane sum of 3M$. The last thing the Leafs need now is egocetricity, buffoonery, limelight hogging, poor cap and salary management and a retrograde John Brophyesque approach to the game. Take a step back from the forest gentlemen and have a look at what you have right now in the classy, shrewd and developing combination of Mr. Cliff Fletcher and Joe Nieuwendyk. Shipping Tucker, McCabe and bringing in Wilson, Hagman amd Grobovski alone are masterful strokes that will serve this organization for years to come. Give Cliff a couple more years, a real shot at the trade deadline, another couple drafts and let Joe osmotically absorb some of the Silver Fox's brilliance and peer respect. Joe already has the class down. He'll be the perfect GM in a couple years after being mentored by Cliff. Case in point, it was Joe who spoke to Jason Blake to get his perspective back. It's these actions and qualities that attract top free agents build long term leaders and team success not Burke's particular brand of bombast. Personally I'd take Cliff and Joe's quiet confidence, class and competence in a heartbeat.

[Hitch]

My only concerns are that Burke has:

1. not proven he can draft well beyond top 5 picks,
2. not shown he can operate under the salary cap, long-term and,
3. a disturbing trend of showing loyalty to "his" guys (Bertuzzi and Morrison come to mind - they were finished as players when BB re-acquired them in Anaheim) while giving only selective loyalty to others that he did not acquire, irrespective of how they have performed under his reign.

If the Leafs ensure he has a great scouting department that he actually listens to, then undoubtably Burke is the best candidate available. (Apologies to Neil Smith, but he's been out of the game for too long.)

[John]

Did Brian Burke contribute to the championship? Absolutely.
But the only thing that is "moronic" is to discredit those who point out how irrelevant his success with a loaded Anaheim roster one season removed from a Stanley Cup finals appearance is to being successful with this pseudo-expansion team.
Again, not just anyone would have made all the right moves, but aside from the roster he inherited consider that even his moves weren't as bold as some might suggest:
- Anaheim WINS second in the lottery so they get Bobby Ryan
- Having Ryan and Getzlaf makes trading a 40 goal scoring 20 year old winger (Lupul) for Pronger a no-brainer, while most other teams couldn't imagine having that depth of prospects he INHERITED (particularly Vancouver where he had drafted Kesler ahead of Mike Richards and Perry)
- He didn't acquire Rob Niedermeyer, so picking up the phone when Scott Niedermeyer's agent called him was no great feat.
- Selanne has been pretty much determined to play out his career in Anaheim since his Colorado experiment, so heaping praise for that acquisition may be overstating his abilities as well
Has Brian Burke ever instituted a five year plan to build which resulted in a Stanley Cup and sustained competitiveness? The kind that Gainey, Holland, Lamorillo, Sather, or of course Fletcher have? Certainly not.

Are the Leafs 2 drafts, and a couple youth for veteran moves away from winning the Stanley Cup? Sorry fans and board members, but no.
So how is Burke a good fit here?

If not one of the proven builders named above, at least a leader with promise like Wilson, Regier, or Chiarelli.

Maybe I'm a moron, but this guy is not in the top 20% of GMs in the world, and his strengths that make him one of the 8-15 best are in no way suited to this team and its needs.

The only positive is when Burke gets fired after 4 more years of mediocrity, he will identify the individuals on the Board who specifically attempted to interfere with his job.

And speaking of giving Brian Burke credit where it's not due, Mike Keenan traded for Bertuzzi and McCabe in Vancouver, not Burke as was reported in The Star in Saturday's edition. Though that would have been the best move of Burke's career.

Can't we just admit the guy's a capable GM who made the most of an ideal situation and leave it at that, rather than continue this farce that he's an ideal candidate?

[Skeeter]

I agree it is nuts to not give Burke credit for his management at Anaheim. If I recall the Ducks have a fairly slick scouting team who have been around.

They pre-existed Burke was my underrstanding--or in particular one scout did who I've read about and can't recall his name. More than Bryan Murray's management or Burke, I think many people give credit to that scouting staff for building the Ducks. The Leafs and many teams can't get 1st round picks to make their team and play consistently well and yet the Ducks had several unheralded players contributing and becoming premier players in the NHL.

Getlaz, Perry, McDonald (no longer there) and Penner (no longer there) were obviously major factors in the Ducks winning the cup. I might be off but bringing in Carlyle certainly was a good move but Babcock is a pretty good coach. Anaheim had been doing things right for a few years before Burke arrived would be my opinion and that is why there has to be some doubt Burke is anywhere nearly as good as his one cup from Anaheim would say.

But the Leafs are in different shape than the Ducks and not likely a few players away from much. Certainly he would be a contender for the job. Is he the only guy the Leafs should be looking at for GM though?

[Ray Brewer]

According to all you media types, Brian Burke is the greatest GM in NHL history..Yes he had Giguere and some good young players..But make no mistake, he inherited a team that made it to the finals two seasons before he even showed up..He deserves some credit for winning the cup but the Ducks have serious cap issues and one could argue, they won't be good for long..

Why haven't people mentioned all the follies of his 6 years at the helm of the Canucks?..He started 13 different goalies in 6 seasons..He was the only person on planet earth that beleived Dan Cloutier was the goalie to lead the Canucks to the cup..He was fired after one season in Hartford and there was a reason he wasn't a GM for 6 years after that..He made some good trades in Anaheim but you need some good players to make trades for guys like Pronger..He won't be inheriting a Leaf team two seasons removed from a cup final..I say give the job to Steve Yzerman..He comes from an organization that knows how to win..