The Brian Burke Thread

[Redleaf]

McGuire was also pretty blunt about the Leafs chances of trading / signing anyone of significance this summer.

Of course, he was. When McGuire is on any radio station outside of Toronto, he's super-negative about the Leafs. When he's on a radio station in Toronto, he's relatively positive about them. I wouldn't put any stock into what he's saying.

I don't need McGuire to tell me nothing of significance is going to happen with the Leafs this summer - this isn't my first dance. It's not yours either you should know better by now.

You're always a fun guy to talk hockey with. Are you more cheery on the Sens boards?

 

[Madferret]

I don't need McGuire to tell me nothing of significance is going to happen with the Leafs this summer - this isn't my first dance. It's not yours either you should know better by now.

I'm not saying that he's wrong, just that him saying anything about it means nothing to me, because, well, he's an idiot.

Well yeah...

 

[Madferret]

McGuire was also pretty blunt about the Leafs chances of trading / signing anyone of significance this summer.

Of course, he was. When McGuire is on any radio station  outside of Toronto, he's super-negative about the Leafs. When he's on a radio station in Toronto, he's relatively positive about them. I wouldn't put any stock into what he's saying.

I don't need McGuire to tell me nothing of significance is going to happen with the Leafs this summer - this isn't my first dance. It's not yours either you should know better by now.

You're always a fun guy to talk hockey with. Are you more cheery on the Sens boards?

I was kicked out of the Sens boards 26 "trade Spezza NOW" threads ago

 

[Tigger]

Well, I think people are waaaay tooo impatient and think he can make a contender in such a short period of time.

But it was Burke who started things off by saying that he didn't believe in a five year rebuilding process. It's Burke who talks about gunning for the playoffs every year. Burke is the guy who talks about how Pittsburgh built their team as if it were a cosmic accident.

You can't blame people for criticizing Burke for failing at his own stated goals. We're headed into year four of Burke's time here and, like it or not, he has a track record. His record in free agency is not very good. His record with trades can, at best, be called hit and miss. In terms of the draft/prospects...obviously there's going to be no clear answer there but I think the general perspective on the Leafs farm system is that it's good, has depth, but not great and lacking in star power. That's not a great record after four years when there's no NHL success to go along with it.

It's true, had Burke come in and said "this team is a mess we'll need to go minimum 4-5 years of pain before things get better" I think people wouldn't be all over him right now.  He's made his own bed.

I don't, everyone clings to that claim in year one but he's adjusted to the market fairly well since to me. Getting burned banking on ufa's is one thing, trading the farm to make the playoffs hasn't happened either, and I'm pretty good with that.

 

[Corn Flake]

Well, I think people are waaaay tooo impatient and think he can make a contender in such a short period of time.

But it was Burke who started things off by saying that he didn't believe in a five year rebuilding process. It's Burke who talks about gunning for the playoffs every year. Burke is the guy who talks about how Pittsburgh built their team as if it were a cosmic accident.

You can't blame people for criticizing Burke for failing at his own stated goals. We're headed into year four of Burke's time here and, like it or not, he has a track record. His record in free agency is not very good. His record with trades can, at best, be called hit and miss. In terms of the draft/prospects...obviously there's going to be no clear answer there but I think the general perspective on the Leafs farm system is that it's good, has depth, but not great and lacking in star power. That's not a great record after four years when there's no NHL success to go along with it.

It's true, had Burke come in and said "this team is a mess we'll need to go minimum 4-5 years of pain before things get better" I think people wouldn't be all over him right now.  He's made his own bed.

I don't, everyone clings to that claim in year one but he's adjusted to the market fairly well since to me. Getting burned banking on ufa's is one thing, trading the farm to make the playoffs hasn't happened either, and I'm pretty good with that.

I agree.. what does saying "we need 4-5 years" do? It buys you time and gets people off your back but doesn't change anything.  Not like it brings more success.. just an excuse.  Dryden used it and it didn't change anything.

Burke clearly changed his approach 2 years ago and he said as much when they started to trade veterans and add draft picks and prospects and adjust to be a faster, more skilled team. That was evident last year in their play.  If he had continued to stubbornly add UFA's and ignore the draft for the last 2.5 years I would be more supportive of the criticism of what he said the day he got hired.

 

[jonlleafs]

Well, I think people are waaaay tooo impatient and think he can make a contender in such a short period of time.

But it was Burke who started things off by saying that he didn't believe in a five year rebuilding process. It's Burke who talks about gunning for the playoffs every year. Burke is the guy who talks about how Pittsburgh built their team as if it were a cosmic accident.

You can't blame people for criticizing Burke for failing at his own stated goals. We're headed into year four of Burke's time here and, like it or not, he has a track record. His record in free agency is not very good. His record with trades can, at best, be called hit and miss. In terms of the draft/prospects...obviously there's going to be no clear answer there but I think the general perspective on the Leafs farm system is that it's good, has depth, but not great and lacking in star power. That's not a great record after four years when there's no NHL success to go along with it.

Yes he did say that and sure he made a mistake with his statement, but are you going to run him into the ground or are you going to let him adjust his strategy and let him do what is best for the team?  Are you going to keep sticking this to him or allow him to now rebuild properly?  He still isn't rebuilding like LA has done, but he should stay the course.  Don't sell the farm for a quick fix just to appease the fans and throw away all the hard work he's done up till now.  This is the reason why I give him some rope.  Burke, whether you guys like it or not, is a smart guy.  He's made some mistakes, but for the most part, has done some great work.  He's put in structure.  He's put in integrity and credibility to the team that JFJ could never do.  Even Cox feels he should stay the course:

http://www.thestar.com/sports/leafs/article/1211958--cox-maple-leafs-likely-to-pass-on-rick-nash-pitch-for-roberto-luongo

So, go ahead by all means and keep bashing him for words he said at the beginning or allow him to adjust/adapt to the situation which all good GMs should do.  You can't argue against the fact that we are MUCH MUCH better than we were pre-Burke as far as the entire organization is concerned as far as talent within the organization.

 

[Kin]

Yes he did say that and sure he made a mistake with his statement, but are you going to run him into the ground or are you going to let him adjust his strategy and let him do what is best for the team?  Are you going to keep sticking this to him or allow him to now rebuild properly?  He still isn't rebuilding like LA has done, but he should stay the course.  Don't sell the farm for a quick fix just to appease the fans and throw away all the hard work he's done up till now.  This is the reason why I give him some rope.  Burke, whether you guys like it or not, is a smart guy.  He's made some mistakes, but for the most part, has done some great work.  He's put in structure.  He's put in integrity and credibility to the team that JFJ could never do.  Even Cox feels he should stay the course:

http://www.thestar.com/sports/leafs/article/1211958--cox-maple-leafs-likely-to-pass-on-rick-nash-pitch-for-roberto-luongo

So, go ahead by all means and keep bashing him for words he said at the beginning or allow him to adjust/adapt to the situation which all good GMs should do.  You can't argue against the fact that we are MUCH MUCH better than we were pre-Burke as far as the entire organization is concerned as far as talent within the organization.

The problem with your reply here, although it seems to be pretty popular among the people who responded to my and Zee's post, is that you're only responding to my first sentence there. The only reason I led off with that is that you seem to be casually dismissive of anyone who was wacky enough to think that Burke could have built a contender by now when, really, that's on Burke instead of them. I think the fair issues to be taken with Burke, which I lay out in the largely ignored body of the post you're responding to, don't begin and end with the fact that he took a pretty bad first step forward on the job but rather that it's representative of where he's erred throughout his tenure.

I don't think that there's an inherent superiority in taking the long road vs. taking shortcuts but what I do think is that when you do try to go for the quick fix, as Burke did when he got here, is that you're making things a lot harder for yourself in terms of building a contender. If you're not picking in the top 5 you can still draft good players, superstars even, it just has a much, much smaller margin for error than picking up near the top. Going the quick route is going to result in a much higher premium put on the quality of a GM's ability to read his team, get an understanding of what his team needs and then make decisions on how to proceed. Burke's track record in that matter is not a stellar one in his time here.

Burke signed Komisarek, Burke signed Connolly, Burke signed Beauchemin and kept Wilson around and misjudged the value of the Kessel picks and overrated Phaneuf and messed up with Versteeg. That's all on him. To be fair, there were good moves too, but all of those moves are strikes against his decision making in his time here.

Like I said, when asked about how Pittsburgh built their team Burke could have easily said "Obviously they've had a lot of success, we want to incorporate more of what they did into our approach going forward" but instead he swore and sounded like an idiot by pretending that the entirety of Pittsburgh's success is related to Sidney Crosby, as if we hadn't just seen a season that Crosby missed where Pittsburgh was still very good. That doesn't speak well to his ability to look over the facts of the situation and come to a reasonable conclusion or even about the lessons he may have learned from his initial failures and bad judgments when he took over the club.

You keep presenting the idea that Burke has done a better job with the organization than JFJ as if that's some sort of grand accomplishment rather than the outpacing of one of the worst GM's in modern NHL history. I'm not inclined to give that a ton of credit. To me, doing better than JFJ is the barest minimum level of competency that should be expected.

I'm especially not inclined to do it when his outpacing JFJ is almost entirely related to the supposed quality of the farm system. Believe it or not, the quality of minor leaguers and juniors drafted by the club was what JFJ's last defenders also clung to and with some justification as it turned out. JFJ's drafts did end up producing more NHL talent  than we initially thought. Reimer, Gunnarsson, Frattin, Kulemin, heck, even Jiri Tlusty looks like he's going to stick in the league.

If you're inclined to read this magazines prospect rankings or that websites organizational rankings and say that they represent concrete proof of a job well done I'm not going to argue the point. I've seen too many good prospects fail in the NHL to know that there's only so much you could ascribe to it if people were ranting and raving about the Leafs' organization as if the next 20 Stanley Cups were in the bag(which, again, they're not doing. I haven't seen anything all that reputable that suggests that the Leafs' system goes beyond "pretty good").

All I can do is look at the decisions Burke's made, their impact on the NHL club, try to put them all in context and try to judge them. I just don't see how anyone can do that as it relates to Burke's tenure and come away thinking that it's been anything special. There's been more failure than success, more bad decisions than good.

 

[Tigger]

more bad decisions than good.

On balance, I don't agree.

 

[Kin]

On balance, I don't agree.

Don't you?

 

[WhatIfGodWasALeaf]

You mention Beauchemin an Versteeg as mistakes Nik, in both of those instances we wound up better as a result of trading those players. Gardiner is better than Beauchemin imo and Lupul is better than Versteeg. Add to that the fact we have I believe Stuart Percy and Josh Leivo as well regarded prospects as a result of the picks acquired for Versteeg.

You criticize him for bad moves and mention that there where good moves too, I think it's unfair to mention Versteeg and Beauchemin as failures as they both resulted in a net win for the Leafs.

As for Phaneuf, I'd say giving him the captaincy was a mistake, but the trade as a whole was a win for Burke.

The bottom line is your final sentence, you mention you think he's had more misses than hits, I think most people here are simply saying the contrary, nobody is saying the guy is a miracle worker just yet.

 

[Tigger]

On balance, I don't agree.

Don't you?

unsurprisingly, no. He hasn't been perfect by any stretch, and I agree Leaf success hasn't happened, but I think he's done more good than bad for the Leafs.

 

[maplesyrup]

If you factor in the Marlies plus the depth of the prospect pool (though it might lack a future star) then yes, he's been good for the organization as a whole but if we're just talkin' Leafs then I give Burke a failing grade.

 

[WhatIfGodWasALeaf]

If you factor in the Marlies plus the depth of the prospect pool (though it might lack a future star) then yes, he's been good for the organization as a whole but if we're just talkin' Leafs then I give Burke a failing grade.

So the organisation as a whole is significantly better, do you think the current Leafs team would beat the team that was here when he took over? I'd have loved for us to be a contender by now, but we are better than when he started from top to bottom.

 

[Kin]

You mention Beauchemin an Versteeg as mistakes Nik, in both of those instances we wound up better as a result of trading those players. Gardiner is better than Beauchemin imo and Lupul is better than Versteeg. Add to that the fact we have I believe Stuart Percy and Josh Leivo as well regarded prospects as a result of the picks acquired for Versteeg.

You criticize him for bad moves and mention that there where good moves too, I think it's unfair to mention Versteeg and Beauchemin as failures as they both resulted in a net win for the Leafs.

I'm not overly inclined to debate the respective merits of either player but, at the very least, I think what you'd have to concede is that if you look at those players and the individual transactions they were involved in both were poor decisions(as both were then deemed to not be good fits for the Maple Leafs) and then arguably redeemed by later good decisions(although there's not much of an argument re:Beauchemin). So if we're tallying up Burke's decisions both positive and negative then, by your account, they'd represent a check in each column. My personal opinion re: Versteeg is just that you'd get the order wrong but that's largely beside the point.

I think that's more relevant than trying to come up with a single net value of either guy.

As for Phaneuf, I'd say giving him the captaincy was a mistake, but the trade as a whole was a win for Burke.

I don't agree.

The bottom line is your final sentence, you mention you think he's had more misses than hits, I think most people here are simply saying the contrary, nobody is saying the guy is a miracle worker just yet.

Ok. I've just got his actual results in my corner. I don't think Dale Tallon is a miracle worker either but I think he's shown that expecting more improvement from the big league club is anything other than hunting unicorns.

 

[maplesyrup]

If you factor in the Marlies plus the depth of the prospect pool (though it might lack a future star) then yes, he's been good for the organization as a whole but if we're just talkin' Leafs then I give Burke a failing grade.

So the organisation as a whole is significantly better, do you think the current Leafs team would beat the team that was here when he took over? I'd have loved for us to be a contender by now, but we are better than when he started from top to bottom.

I don't know if this Leafs team is better than JFJ's. I'd love to be proven wrong next year.

 

[Tigger]

Disparaging unicorns again Nik, how could you?

I haven't seen the fullness of your pov yet, point by point, I still think Burke has done ok by the Leafs, though not extravagantly. Something like 65-35.

 

[Kin]

unsurprisingly, no. He hasn't been perfect by any stretch, and I agree Leaf success hasn't happened, but I think he's done more good than bad for the Leafs.

Ok. I mean, as I sort of said, I think the only real way to come to that conclusion is to try and project a farm system outward which I'm admittedly leaving aside.

 

[Kin]

I haven't seen the fullness of your pov yet, point by point, I still think Burke has done ok by the Leafs, though not extravagantly. Something like 65-35.

The Leafs as a team or the Leafs as an organization? Because as I said, I'm largely focused on the former and, in that respect, I think I'm setting the bar a little higher than people seem to want to set it for Burke. Improving on what JFJ/Fletcher left behind seems almost inevitable simply based on where the team was.

 

[WhatIfGodWasALeaf]

Well that's pretty clear, we disagree on some key decisions. A couple of gifts for you...

 

[Frank E]

For being the highest paid front office in the league, I'm pretty certain that they can be characterized as disappointing so far.

Status quo, they're not a playoff team...and they spend to the cap.

Next year is still a massive question mark at this point, and there has to be some pretty fantastic moves this summer just to be considered a playoff team...A fking playoff team!!! 

Honestly, no number one center, no starting goalie, and no team identity...love the guy's personality, but he's not executing as advertised previous to the Leafs hiring.