By: Jeff Lingard
In
a stunning development, the Toronto Maple Leafs fired General Manager
Brian Burke after just over four years on the job. Burke was tasked with
making the Leafs Cup contenders after his role in winning a Stanley Cup
as the GM of the Anaheim Ducks. His most noteworthy trade happened in
September, 2009 where Burke traded 2010 and 2011 first round draft picks
plus a 2010 second round draft pick to the Boston Bruins for Phil
Kessel and then signed Kessel to a five year $27 million contract. Burke
was expecting the Leafs to contend for the playoffs in 2009-10 but
instead finished 29th in the league and allowed the Bruins to select
Tyler Seguin in 2010 and then top prospect defenceman Dougie Hamilton in
2011. Kessel has been a very good offensive player but he is not a
franchise player.
It
was widely rumoured that Burke would be fired if the Leafs didn’t make
the playoffs this year. The timing to this move is curious. If there was
no lockout, would Burke have been fired in September of 2012? Is there a
disagreement over whether the Leafs should make a move for Roberto
Luongo? I’m sure details about this will leak out over the next few
weeks. For now we will probably see a lot of Brian Burke on TSN as a
studio analyst and I’m sure he will get a front office job in the next
couple of years.
My
first impression of this firing is that Burke deserved one more year
since the core of the team that he has drafted have finally established
themselves as NHL players. His 2012 first-round pick, Morgan Rielly
looks like an elite defensive prospect. If the Leafs get good
goaltending this year they should challenge for a lower playoff seed in
the Eastern Conference. Ultimately though the Kessel trade hampered and
did not accelerate the rebuilding process as Burke had hoped. He
overestimated college signings like Tyler Bozak and Christian Hanson as
replacements for high first round picks. The funny thing with the Kessel
trade was it seemed like for the first time the Leafs were satisfied
with a Washington/Pittsburgh rebuilding plan through the draft with high
picks over two to three years. It is going to be interesting how Leafs
fans react to this and to find out about the details of the firing.
3 comments:
You're not a leaf fan? Good for you!
Maybe the Canadiens will pick him up!
Listening to the stats: .422 win percentage, worst GAA since nov 2008 across the entire league, 3rd leafs gm to never make the playoffs. The writing was on the wall. Burke knew what he had coming in, he had to have believed he was good enough to turn it around. The owners didn't like the vision anymore.
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