Still in Charge

VANCOUVER--Well, well, well. Isn't this an interesting turn?

Roberto Luongo, it appears, didn't get the memo that his days as the No. 1 goaltender of the Vancouver Canucks were over. Or, if he did, he's decided to ignore it until something definitive happens, keeping his sense of humour intact as a rabid hockey city awaits a resolution to the biggest sports debate on the west coast.

Spotting a familiar Toronto media face after his shutout victory over the punchless Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday night, Luongo barked out, "Hey, you here scouting for the Leafs, or what's going on here?"

We can assume he's heard he's been a trending topic in southern Ontario since June.

That Luongo received his second consecutive start on Wednesday came as somewhat of a surprise, particularly given that he'd been unable to hold a two-goal lead against the defending champion L.A. Kings in his previous start.

But open in the blue paint against the Avs he did, and 24 saves later, he had a shutout and a win, two things many believed he'd never register again in a Vancouver uniform.

It didn't have to be a dazzling performance by Luongo against a Colorado team that was shut out for a second straight game and was missing injured forwards Gabriel Landeskog and Steve Downie, as well as unsigned youngster Ryan O'Reilly. Let's just say the glory days of Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg are long, long gone, and leave it at that.

Luongo got a little lucky on the first shot of the game when the puck got behind him but stayed out, and then made his best save of the night, a breakaway stop on Matt Duchene, in the third with the game still on the line.

In other words, perfect is perfect.

"The guys did a great job in front of me. I don't think (Colorado) had much all night," said Luongo, previously winless this season.

"First and foremost, it's nice to get the win. It's my third start, so I wanted to get in there and get a win for the guys."

Now, it gets interesting. Luongo's stats are better than those of Cory Schneider, who signed a three-year, $12 million contract last summer to become, most believed, Vancouver's new starting goalie.

Arch-rival Chicago is in Friday night, and the identity of the starting goalie for that one will say something about where the internal politics of the Canucks are favouring at the moment.

"I'll tell you tomorrow," said head coach Alain Vigneault after the game when asked about Friday's starter. "Look, I understand why this is an issue outside our dressing room. But they're two quality individuals, team guys, and they will do what I say."

Luongo has done a very good job so far of playing the good soldier while GM Mike Gillis sorts out potential trade scenarios. The Maple Leafs still are interested in the 33-year-old netminder despite his nightmarish contract, but aren't willing to pay the price in players and prospects that Vancouver is demanding.

Florida may or may not be interested. Washington? Just speculation at the moment.

"I just get ready to play," said Luongo. "Whatever decision it is is fine. Whoever starts Friday is good."

The Canucks have played seven games, and Schneider has started four, Luongo three.

"I think I was able to build off Monday," said Luongo of his solid play in a losing effort against the Kings. "The more you play the more comfortable you feel. That goes without saying.

"I just take it for what it is. I'm playing hockey in the NHL. I consider myself lucky."

The Rogers Arena crowd greeted him enthusiastically on Wednesday, bellowing "Loooooooo!!" on even the most pedestrian of saves. Based on the audience's reaction, he's certainly not viewed negatively here at the moment, not viewed as an obstacle to obtaining other assets for a Vancouver team hoping to take a run at the franchise's first Stanley Cup this season.

What we know for sure is that if Vancouver makes a deal involving Luongo or Schneider this season, they'll either need a goalie back or will need a side deal to bring in another netminder. Their third-stringer, Eddie Lack, is out indefinitely with a hip injury.

Beyond that, there's seems no sense of panic in Vancouver. Toronto, meanwhile, is 3-3 with James Reimer playing well, while Florida is off to a lousy start, so we'll see if the pressure starts building with Vancouver's possible trade partners.

Right now, Luongo seems to be handling the awkwardness of sharing the net with Schneider somewhat better than his younger netminding partner.

It's almost as if the combination of the off-season and the 113-day lockout served to wipe out the memory of where Vancouver believed it was on goaltending matters at the end of last season.

Luongo is like the evicted tenant who refuses to leave until the cops come to give him the boot.

Right now, there's no police in sight.

 

 

Paying the Kids

Every time there's a new CBA in the NHL, the owners claim they need new labour rules to keep the sport in financial order and save them from themselves.

Then they go out and either fail to use those new regulations, or go even further and circumvent the system to meet their own competitive desires.

It has always been thus, or at least, it has been thus in the past two decades.

So how refreshing it has been, really, to see two of the league's biggest revenue teams, the New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens, hold the line in recent days, controlling their costs with young players just as the CBA says they can.

The Rangers inked defenceman Michael del Zotto to a two-year contract worth $2.55 million per season. On Monday night, the Montreal Canadiens came to terms with blueliner P.K. Subban on a similar two-year deal worth $2.875 million a year.

These were two players who declined to sign before the lockout kicked in Sept. 15, probably understanding that the nine- and 10-year deals handed out like candy to the likes of Boston's Tyler Seguin, Carolina's Jeff Skinner and two Edmonton Oilers, Jordan Eberle and Taylor Hall, might not be available when the lockout ended.

Well, apparently they weren't. Subban, in particular, hoped for a much-longer term and much more in annual salary, but it didn't happen.

This is not to applaud the ownership of the Rangers and Habs. Moreover, the Oilers, Hurricanes and Bruins may profit from their decisions if it turns out that they've locked up their young stars with contracts that will over time prove to be economically beneficial if the market takes a huge upswing. If Hall, for example, becomes a 40-goal man, in two or three years $6 million a year may seem a great deal, particularly if the cap heads north of $70 million somewhere down the road.

Of course, it's the flipside that's the concern. The Maple Leafs would be one team that holds the contracts of two players, Phil Kessel and Dion Phaneuf, who became very rich young men coming off their first contracts but haven't yet the scaled the heights as forecasted. The Leafs were the one who gave Kessel his deal. Calgary, meanwhile, extended Phaneuf during his third season after two all-star game appearances to a six-year contract worth $6.5 million per season. Soon thereafter, they grew unhappy with the players and the contract, and moved Phaneuf east.

So there's possible benefits and possible risks to these long-term arrangement with players yet to fully prove themselves.

Defenceman Erik Johnson, the first overall pick in 2006, has developed slowly. St. Louis, at the start, preferred to limit their exposure because they were unsure of Johnson's development. Traded to Colorado in 2011, Johnson signed a four-year deal last summer for $3.75 million per that will make him a UFA in 2016.

All in all, this seems a sensible progression from prospect to young player to established player, and Johnson has hardly had to cry poor along the way. One wonders how Kessel, drafted four slots behind Johnson, might have benefitted with more gradual financial growth and less pressure. Ditto for Phaneuf.

In that light, it was at least refreshing to see New York and Montreal hold the line with players who, like the others, have no real leverage and limited arbitration rights. With unrestricted free agency at 27 or even 25 in some cases, NHL clubs have less time than once was the case to control their costs with such players.

We'll see how these contracts all play out, and which teams played the system correctly, paricularly with the cap dropping to $64.3 million next season.

But after this most recent lockout, we've all grown weary of the owners claiming poverty and blaming the players for runaway costs. If they want to make their own business healthier, using the tools the CBA gives them is a start.

 

 

 

Not Quite the Armada

We appear set for a tennis season very similar to last year.

The victory of world No. 1 Novak Djokovic on Sunday for his third straight Aussie Open title suggests the Serb is still the man to beat, although his opponent in Melbourne, Scotsman Andy Murray, is hot on Djokovic's heels.

At the U.S. Open, it was Murray in five sets.

Down Under, it was Djokovic in a more comfortable four.

Roger Federer lost to Murray and was the third-best player in the event, and the return of Rafael Nadal to competitive tennis next month promises some variation in the overall pattern, but more likely more of the same.

Outside of that top four, nobody's challenging to bust in and take over.

Internationally, however, things may be a little different.

The Czech Republic won the Davis Cup last year, with Tomas Berdych leading the way, and a new season in the team tennis competition begins this week with Canada eying an upset over Spain, a finalist against the Czechs.

Ordinarily, this would be a mismatch of the highest order, even more substantial than when Canada was thumped by France last winter.

Changes to the Spanish lineup, however, suggest the possibility of an upset are somewhat greater than would normally be the case.

For the event, there is some disappointment that Spain's top four singles players - Nadal, David Ferrer, Nicolas Almagro and Fernando Verdasco - will all miss next weekend's tie in Vancouver on the campus of the University of British Columbia.

But the tickets are all sold, and it now remains to be seen, starting Friday, whether a television audience can be attracted on Super Bowl weekend by the improved chances of a Canadian upset, or will be pushed away by the absence of star quality.

To be clear, Spain is still favoured, but not by nearly as much.

They aren't sending their B or C team, after all.

This is more like their F squad, their Black Aces.

Almagro was the latest Spaniard to pull out, and he was replaced by Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, ranked 85th in the world. The other singles players are Albert Ramos (51st) and Marcel Granollers (32nd).

Both Felipe Lopez and Pablo Andujar are ranked higher than Garcia-Lopez, but they're not coming to Vancouver either.

Again, this is Spain's okay-if-we-have-to-send-somebody team.

And why shouldn't they feel this will still be more than enough?

Granollers and Marc Lopez, after all, are an excellent doubles team, something like the French tandem of Michael Llodra and Julien Benneteau. Those Frenchmen dismantled Daniel Nestor and Milos Raonic last winter in Davis Cup competition, and Nestor lost both his Davis Cup doubles matches in 2012.

But this is also true. Raonic is No. 15 in the world coming off a fairly strong Australian Open, and he is more than capable of winning two singles matches next weekend.

That leaves the dubs - Raonic might play in that as well - and the other singles, likely to feature Frank Dancevic or Vasek Pospisil.

Both Dancevic and Pospisil are scuffling on tour right now. But both have beaten big names on the ATP circut and won big for Canada, Pospisil in particular. He hasn't played a match this year while battling mono, however, and has fallen to 127th from 85th. Dancevic, 28, didn't make it out of the qualification rounds in Brisbane or Melbourne.

Still, until Jesse Levine is cleared to play for Canada, and until another strong player appears at this level (Filip Peliwo?), this is about the best shot Canada is going to get at upsetting one of the big tennis countries.

And tennis could use a few surprises.

 

 

 

 

 

Leafs in Manhattan

NEW YORK--A few tweeks, Randy Carlyle hopes, will make a huge difference.

So it'll be James Reimer in net tonight against the 1-3 Rangers - with a new mask, no less - Mark Fraser in for Cody Franson on the back end, Mike Komisarek activated again for the demoted Jake Gardiner and Mike Brown drawing back into the lineup for David Steckel.

A little more snarl, for sure. And, Carlyle hopes, a better sense of preparedness, as well.

"Set the tone on the first shift. Win the first faceoff. Make the first bodycheck. Draw the first penalty," said the Leaf coach this morning after a pre-game skate at Madison Square Garden.

"Have everybody ready."

The Leafs did jump out to a 3-1 lead on Thursday against the Islanders, and could have been up 4-1 if they'd capitalized on a 5-on-3 powerplay late in the first. But even when they were building that margin, Carlyle believed the team was "loose" in its approach and wasn't terribly surprised when it all fell apart later en route to a 7-4 home-ice defeat.

Gardiner, sent to the minors the next day, looked to take a chunk of the blame, although Carlyle says that wasn't so.

"We know he's going to play on our team. It's a matter of when," said Carlyle, echoing his thoughts on Matt Frattin earlier this month when he failed to make the club out of training camp.

"I just thought (Gardiner) wasn't skating at the level he's capable of. In his first game against Pittsburgh, it was quite evident. Against the Islanders, he skated better, but his decision-making wasn't the Jake Gardiner we're used to," said Carlyle.

The head coach said Frattin - more physical than he was in camp - and Nazem Kadri were his best two players against Long Island, and praised the work of Marlies coach Dallas Eakins for sculpting the youngsters.

"I'm getting the luxury of what Dallas has developed," said Carlyle.

For the Rangers, meanwhile, Chris Kreider will miss his second straight game. The club is reporting a bone chip in Kreider's ankle, although he has struggled in the early going this season after playing very well in the post-season straight out of college last spring.

 

 

 

Ouches Starting to Pile Up

Tomas Vanek may lead the way in NHL scoring in the early days of this shortened NHL season, but you won't find what promises to be the most important stat this season among the goals and assists and goaltending numbers.

It's injuries, and man-games lost to injuries. Lose a guy for a month during an 82-game campaign and that's one thing. But that lineup deletion means a lot more when the season only stretches from mid-January to the end of April.

Already, key injuries are being felt, no surprise, you might argue, given the brief training camp.

The defending champion L.A. Kings have lost hardnosed blueliner Matt Greene for the season. Colorado winger Steve Downie is apparently gone for the campaign with a knee problem. Phoenix goalie Mike Smith, the be all and end all with that hockey club, left in the first period with a "lower body" injury on Wednesday night, and the seriousness of that hurt isn't yet known.

The Leafs, meanwhile, welcomed back blueliner Jake Gardiner from a neck/concussion injury on Wednesday night only to lose winger Joffrey Lupul to a fractured forearm after being struck by a Dion Phaneuf shot.

This is lousy timing for the 2-1 Leafs, but even more so for Lupul who signed a five-year, $26.5 million contract extension.

He'll get paid, of course. But his reputation in some eyes as a little brittle won't be helped, unfair as that is given that this was totally a freak injury.

Lupul misses almost all of 2010 with complications from back surgery. Last year, he suffered a shoulder injury that ruined what was a career season. He was so intent on making this season a good one he decided not to join Canada at the world championships, preferring instead to rehab his shoulder.

He reluctantly went to Russia during the lockout to get his game going, and according to GM Dave Nonis, came to camp in "excellent" shape.

Now this. Hey, that's hockey. The Leafs, at least, have some depth on the wing they can call upon if necessary, with Matt Frattin just a call away with the Marlies. Wednesday night's game saw the first offensive flashes from James Van Riemsdyk, and Phil Kessel's sure getting lots of quality chances, isn't he?

But at the same time, the Leafs aren't the deepest team in hockey, and the loss of a player like Lupul will be felt, as much or more as Greene or Downie or Smith. Heck, the Detroit Red Wings seem to be losing a defenceman a day, and Vancouver has yet to see Ryan Kesler or David Booth.

Keep your eye on the injury lists, folks. That's where this NHL season may be won or lost. 

The Right Stuff

Having slagged the Leafs so often for their pre-game ceremony abilities, it seems only fair to give them credit when they get it right.

Or fairly right, at least.

Sure, the Leafs never do this stuff as well as the Montreal Canadiens, and probably never will. Greatness was 45 years ago, and it has faded away. During the Ken Dryden years, these efforts often turned into long, windy drones that read more like political speeches than rallying cries, and who can ever forget the bizarre flag pulled out to mark the end of Maple Leaf Gardens.

Old habits die hard. Referring to Darcy Tucker and Felix Potvin as Leaf "greats" on Monday night was hyperbole; couldn't they have called them stalwarts, or simply popular?

But the meat of the effort was good, all good.

It started with the 48th Highlanders, no everyone's cup of tea, which I get, but a personal favourite I looked forward to at my 25th Leaf opener. Best of all, they gave them enough time to play three full songs songs rather than rushing them on and rushing them off, as happened a few years ago.

Tradition doesn't simply have to come from introducing players of the past, although it was good to see Red Kelly introduced later in the night.

There was a light show projected on to the ice, and a good one. Then came the introduction of the Leafs, and isn't it always interesting to see which players get the biggest cheers, and which ones don't. On this night, they seemed to love Mike Kostka - after one game! - Nazem Kadri and Ben Scrivens the most, although Phil Kessel got a fair bit of love, as did warriors Mike Brown and Colton Orr.

The ceremonial puck "drop", featuring Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield in the international space station, might have been awkward and goofy but actually worked well, and surprised even the players. Hadfield "dropped" the puck to Potvin, who gave it to Tucker, who took it down on the elevator to Darryl Sitter, who ran it out on to the ice to a waiting Johnny Bower.

You can never, ever go wrong with Johnny Bower.

All in all, it was worth a smile and a grin, and if you can't do pomp and circumstance, why not do fun?

 

The Road Gets Tougher

Yes, in any sport you want to measure yourself against the best.

That said, Milos Raonic may be disclined today to measure where he is in the sport of men's tennis by comparing himself to Roger Federer.

After all, the Swiss master is, to this point, the best to ever play the game. Even while playing in pink-highlighted tennis shoes.

Even at 31, Federer remains among the top players on the planet, a reality he communicated to the 22-year-old Raonic today at the Australian Open with a dominant, three-set victory.

The scoreline - 6-4, 7-6 (4), 6-2 - really suggests a match that was closer than this one was. It only took one hour and 53 minutes, Federer never trailed and Raonic, other than serving with his usual power, showed none of the improvements in his overall game that he has tried to install over the short off-season.

Then again, Federer has a way of making good players look very ordinary. That said, ESPN.com tennis writer Bonnie Ford tweeted immediately after the match that Raonic wasn't certain he would be able to play until 45 minutes before the match because of an inflamed metatarsal bone in his left foot that required an MRI.

Not good news at the very start of this tennis season. The tour is a tough grind, and Raonic has already missed significant time in his young career with injuries, including hip surgery in 2011.

The fourth round triumph pushed Federer - now No. 2 in the world behind Novak Djokovic - into his 35th consecutive quarter-final appearance at a Grand Slam tournament, just one of the indicators of his remarkable consistency over the last nine years.

He hasn't lost a set at this Australian Open, which he has won four times, and he hasn't lost his serve even once in four matches. In other words, he's made four opponents look bad so far, including Aussie hope Bernard Tomic.

In that light, perhaps, it was no embarrassment that Raonic simply couldn't threaten Federer at all on his service games, winning only 12 points when Federer was serving in the entire match.

As always, Federer was magnanimous in victory, praising Raonic.

He's a great talent, a great future for him, it was a pleasure playing him," said Federer, who said Raonic appears "very committed" to working his way up.

The disappointing part for the Maple Leaf Missile will be that he was more competitive in his previous three matches against Federer. All went the distance in the best two-of-three format, and four of the nine sets went to tie-breaks, with Raonic winning two of those.

This, however, was an entirely different scenario. A Grand Slam event, a packed Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, and a best-of-five set format. Federer tested Raonic's movement over and over and found it wanting over and over. The Canadian, meanwhile, shanked backhands, consistently missed low forehands while trying to attack and volleyed poorly when he did get to the net.

Raonic served 19 aces to 14 for Federer and hit more winners. But he didn't have a break point and he made 41 unforced errors, compared to 12 for his older opponent.

The return of serve has been a focal point in Raonic's training, and while he did get a fairly high percentage of serves back, once the ball was in play Federer dominated and was able to play a relatively conservative game and simply wait for Raonic to miss.

It was a fairly uninspiring match to watch, with little drama. Raonic dumped a backhand volley into the net to lose the first set, then watched two big Federer passing shots whiz past to decide the second-set tiebreak.

As New York Times tennis writer Christopher Clarey tweeted, "Still waiting for the youngster who can do to Roger Federer what Federer once did to Pete Sampras."

Federer is looking for his 18th Grand Slam title, an all-time record, and is resisting any sense that he cannot play at the highest level for some time to come. Novak Djokovic is No. 1 in the world, but Federer is right there behind him, Rafael Nadal has been out for months and will only begin to compete again next month in Brazil while Andy Murray's terrific 2012 season will make him more of a marked man this season.

If Federer can get past Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarterfinals - Fed is 8-3 versus Big Jo - he would meet Murray in the semis.

Raonic, meanwhile, begins 2013 ranked a career high No. 15 in the world. This was, with three solid wins before the Federer loss, actually one of his better Grand Slam tournament performances so far in his young career.

Obviously, he still has much to work on, and after this result, his harshest critics will again cite his perceived limitations more than his strengths. His next challenge will be to lead Canada into a Davis Cup tie against powerful Spain in 10 days, a competition that will be held in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia. The Spanish have 13 players in the top 100 in the world, while Canada has two in Raonic and Ottawa-born Jesse Levine, who recently elected to start playing for Canada internationally after playing as an American for years.

Levine, however, won't be eligible for the UBC event, and Canada's usual No. 2 player, Vasek Pospisil, has been struggling with health issues. Doubles specialist Daniel Nestor is now 40 and still among the best in the world, but he lost both his Davis Cup matches for Canada in 2012.

So Raonic will have to play out of his mind to get Canada past Spain, and his injured left foot may even put his participation in question. If that was the case, Canada would go from little chance to no chance.

He won't get much encouragement from his performance today in Melbourne.

That, of course, is what Federer does. He doesn't just beat you. He deflates you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fixable

In an ideal world, here's how it would have gone.

Okay, in an absolutely ideal world, Brian Burke would have been dismissed in October, if that was the intention of the MLSE ownership group.

But if it HAD to happen last Wednesday, here's how it should have gone.

MLSE's chief executive officer would have recommended Burke's firing to the MLSE board, then offered a detailed game plan how it was to happen, being cognizant of the obvious media explosion that would follow.

For starters, Burke would have been told exactly what his future role was going to be without any confusion. His successor, David Nonis, would have been either clearly defined as the interim GM or as the new GM with a new multi-year contract. The press conference featuring Nonis would not have been executed hurriedly, but rather after giving Nonis at least 6-8 hours to get over the shock and deliver a strong and convincing all-is-well message. At that press conference, the CEO would have made it clear the change was his choice, and had been supported by ownership.

So that's how it should gone. It would still have been a huge story, but much of the ugly fallout would have been avoided, and the Leafs might have appeared hasty or even unfair in their dealings, but not dysfunctional.

So why didn't it happen? Well, because MLSE doesn't have a CEO right now.

At a time when momentous decisions are being made, the new ownership group has not managed to find someone in the past six months to fill that role.

The name of NHL chief operating officer John Collins is again popping up as a possible successor to Richard Peddie as the CEO of MLSE. Multiple reports out of the U.S. during the lockout suggested Collins was desperately unhappy with the league's strategy and might be looking to leave.

Whether it's Collins or somebody else, it needs to happen sooner than later.

Yes, Tom Anselmi is the COO of MLSE, and he shepherded the Burke ouster. But those in the corporate world would tell you there's an enormous difference in structure between the CEO position and that of the COO, and Anselmi has been thus far denied the CEO title, although he has said he is a candidate. The CEO job comes with a different set of responsibilities and a different set of skill requirements. One suspects if ownership wanted Anselmi in that role, he'd have the job title by now. Instead, a search committee is still combing the frontier for candidates.

So instead of the scenario in which an experienced CEO would have guided the process of relieving Burke of his duties, here's how it went:

--Everyone involved on Wednesday, including Anselmi, appeared to be in a state of shock. There was no sense this was business as usual. All involved looked like it was the last thing they wanted to happen.

--Burke was allowed to leave the meeting at which he was fired without a clear sense of any future role he might have. Ultimately, he was told he would be an advisor to only the board, not the hockey office, which left the former Leaf GM embarrassed after talking openly about his eagerness to pitch in and help Nonis in several possible ways.

--It was completely unclear, and still is to some extent, exactly where Nonis sits for the future, whether he's the GM beyond this season.

--Nonis, clearly in a state of shock over what had happened to his good friend Burke, was forced into a quickee press conference that was, to put it mildly, a public relations disaster. Given time to gather his thoughts, he gave a much more confident presentation on Sunday.

--Anselmi delivered the news in such a way as to make it clear that ownership, specifically the Bell/Rogers unholy alliance, wanted Burke out, and so the finger of blame naturally zeroed in on ownership. Bell chairman George Cope, in particularly was identified as the person who desired Burke's firing the most.

In the end, the name of Harold Ballard was invoked by more than one media organization, and the Leafs were generally viewed as completely dysfunctional.

This was never a simple problem, and it was going to be an enormous hockey story no matter how it went. But the Leafs pretty much delivered a textbook display of how not to handle something like the firing of the team's GM.

This is fixable. Get a CEO in place. After the way in which both Bell and Rogers bore the brunt of criticism after last week's debacle, you can bet both Cope and Nadir Mohamed have this at the top of their hockey agendas this week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Burke Era Over

Last spring, a veteran GM made a keen observation about the state of the Maple Leafs under Brian Burke

"I don't know if he'll get to finish the job," said the GM. "But he's really set them up well for somebody to turn them into a winner."

Now we'll find out. The stunning replacement of Burke today by his longtime right-hand man, Dave Nonis, was and was not shocking.

Shocking in that there were no rumours it was going to happen, and the timing is downright bizarre, with the 113-day lockout having just ended and the season set to start Jan. 19. Why throw the entire organization into flux now?

But not shocking because of all the rumblings on the street.

The guess is here is Burke was fired for one of two reasons.

One, at least half of the new MLSE ownership team, Bell, was seemingly prepared to fire Burke during the summer. The boss there, George Cope, reportedly disliked Burke's management style and brash public comments, and thought he was "bad for the brand."

Two, both Bell and Rogers are keen on a deal for Vancouver goalie Roberto Luongo, and Burke was resisting such a move. He said repeatedly of late that he was "90 per cent" certain he wanted to go with the combination of James Reimer and Ben Scrivens in net, and had talked several times about his frustrations of dealing with Vancouver GM Mike Gillis, particularly since he wasn't sure dealing for Luongo was the right move.

Clearly, it wasn't anything Burke had done lately, because the lockout had prevented all NHL general managers from making any moves since Sept. 15th. 

Only a strong season with a playoff berth was going to save Burke anyway, particuarly with the folks at Bell not on side. it's not clearly how supportive the executives at Rogers, the other half of the MLSE alliance, were of Burke.

Just as Nonis succeeded Burke in Vancouver in 2004, he now takes over a young Leaf team with substantial assets in terms of prospects and developing talent and few long-term contractual obligations, essentiall under the terms of the new NHL-NHLPA collective bargaining agreement.

He also inherits Phil Kessel, who was the signature acquisition of Burke, a controversial deal that backfired when Boston ended up with the No. 2 pick in the draft and won the Stanley Cup, as well.

Nonis, interestingly enough, acquired Luongo for the Canucks in 2006 from Florida in a deal for Todd Bertuzzi, Bryan Allen and Alex Auld, and now will definitely make a strong push to try and land the veteran goaltender.

Nonis, however, is philosophically more committed to the slow and steady, build with youth approach. Along with Burke, he was the executive who put many of the pieces in place with the Canucks that ultimately helped that team make a run to the 2011 Stanley Cup final.

He had no idea this was coming, even earlier this week. Burke, meanwhile, returned from Russia on Sunday after attending the world junior hockey championships.

The NHL will undoubtedly be rather unhappy with the Burke decision as it upstages the ratification of the new CBA in New York.

The Leafs are saying Burke will stay with the club as a consultant, but that seems more cosmetic than an indication that he will actually fill an advisory role to Nonis.

 

 

The Wait and See Game

So where's the loophole?

Or perhaps more accurately, what is the loophole? Or loopholes, perhaps?

The primary lesson of hockey business history over the past 20 years is that agents, the one stakeholder not represented in periodic CBA negotiations, are the ones who define how an NHL labour agreement works. Moreover, they tend to be experts in finding holes, or turning small loopholes into giant gaps that allow the natural inclination of NHL owners to compete with one another to drive up player salaries in a way usually not contemplated when the CBA was originally written.

In the last CBA, one major loophole was that it allowed for these massive, long-term, back-diving contracts that, while only useful to a small number of players, were inflationary, put smaller market teams in a difficult situation and flaunted the spirit of the salary cap system.

Well, based on what we know, with more of the precise details of the new CBA that ended the 113-day lockout on Sunday expected to be released today, those kinds of contracts won't be available now, or at least not to the same extent. No contract can be longer than eight years, and the lowest salary can't be less than 50 per cent of the highest salary. None of this $10 million in the first year and $1 million in the last year stuff.

Beyond that, Don Fehr negotiated the players into a massive giveback that will amount to $3 billion or more over the course of this agreement. His indefatiguable hagiographers want the world to ignore that basic math and credit The Donald with a win here based on some pension improvements, increased minimum salaries and the fact the players didn't collapse in these negotiatons.

Well, those victories are definitely worth something. But nothing close to $3 billion, or even the $822 million lost in player salaries during the lockout. It sure sounds like Ilya Kovalchuk doesn't feel like the union won.

Some are claiming the NHL "caved" on the last day by allowing the salary cap in the second year of the new CBA to be $64.3 million instead of $60 million, but anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of this cap system know that all the players really did was expose themselves to sharply increased escrow payments.

The ceiling can be anything you want it to be. But in the final accounting, the players collectively get a maximum 50 per cent of the total take. Anything more than that goes back to the NHL in escrow payments.

By the time the players begin to truly understand this deal, of course, the beauty of it for Fehr is that he'll be long gone. He'll even pen his own biography, undoubtedly explaining how he defeated Gary Bettman (once again excluding the $3 billion, of course, or pinning the responsiblity on someone else).

Right now, it looks like Fehr might want to make his exit before the big squeeze on the middle class of his membership in anticipation of the cap decreasing from $70.2 milliion to $64.3 million begins to have its effect next summer. Or before the first big escrow payments are withheld next season. If those payments hit 20 per cent - they were less than 1 per cent last season - union members may want to know why the Fehr Bros. didn't fight for a cap on escrow rather than a defined benefit pension plan.

The only way Fehr ends up looking like a genius here is if there's either a new loophole in this CBA, or one or two old ones left over from the last CBA that weren't closed.

Hard to see what they might be. But the agents will find them if they're there and use them as pressure points. Geez, who would've thought that teams would start giving players gigantic, long-term contracts after only the second year of their entry level deals, but that's what was happening last summer.

So we'll see. There are lots of new rules, from teams being allowed to keep salary in trades to the new "cap benefit recapture" clause to the revised manner in which the cap floor will be calculated that might provide new openings. There are new rules on re-entry waivers and such, as well.

We might even see new loopholes indentified and exploited over the next week or so as quality restricted free agents like P.K. Subban, Jamie Benn and Michael del Zotto negotiate new contracts with their teams. Those players have leverage, but they won't have the leverage of offer sheets.

The final analysis of this new CBA, of course, won't be readily available for at least five years, or maybe longer. If the game grows, the players still will continue to do very well, although not as well as they would have if Fehr hadn't whittled their share down to 50 per cent from 57 per cent. That $300 million in bogus "make whole" payments? That'll evaporate before the ink is dry on this CBA.

Growth of league revenues will determine the average player salary down the road, and if growth is robust, you could see players become much wealthier over the course of this agreement.

But too many, it seems, are just assuming that the steady growth that was evident over the past seven years will simply continue at the same pace.

That ignores a few things.

First, damage has been done to the product, although its hard to say how much. 

Second, much of the growth in recent years was fuelled by the improvement of the Canadian dollar in comparison to the U.S. greenback. With Canadian NHL teams generating so much of the league's revenue this made an enormous difference. Nobody knows where the U.S. economy is headed, and the Canadian dollar may stay strong. But it seems extremely unlikely that the same currency dynamics of the past seven years will be repeated.

Finally, new NHL initiatives like the Winter Classic bolstered league coffers. So what similar initiatives are out there that might do the same? The tainted World Cup? 

Sure, growth may happen, and new Canadian TV contracts in 2014 will help. But it's no slam dunk league revenues will simply continue growing, particularly if this lockout ends up doing serious damage in markets where the NHL was already ailing.

At this point, the players really need to cheer for loopholes. Big, whopping ones. We'll see if they emerge.