Is Brian burke the right GM for the leafs?

[Deron05]

If you saw what Don cherry said, I agree 100%.

[sanity]

I saw it. He's been on Burke's ass for several years and found some controversial stuff to blast Burke about (Ontario hockey players).

The whole Cherry vs. Burke thing is quite petty on both parts. As much as Cherry jumps to the defense of Canadian born players, he'll trash the living crap out of European players like no tomorrow. He's a lot more neutral theses days, but I remember back in the day when he'd call out players for being soft either because they're European or because they wore visors (or both). To a lesser extent he'd also purposely mispronounce players' names to be funny, though to me he always came off as an ignorant son of a bitch.

Not defending Burke in any way, shape or form, he's probably a prick as well, but Cherry's opinion is often biased to an extreme--mostly because of personal stuff/patriotism

Here's the video

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEQF0Pts4aY[/youtube]

Fans shouldn't really care about where their players are from

[ATLTimekeeper]

Not because of anything Don Cherry said, certainly. Burke doesn't have a bias against Ontarians. He expressed a raging hard on for Tavares when he came out, drafted Kadri, was interested in Nash, blah blah. Cherry just knows how to manipulate the weak-minded.

[Waylon Mercy]

Don Cherry is a Boss

[Deron05]

Burke on CBC said he doesnt care where players are born, he justs wants good players? Well, to me its not just a coincidence that theres so many americans here. Theres plenty of Canadians out there that would make this team better. Burke has a huge ego, and lots of pride, so IMO he doesnt want to see Canadians win.

[Deron05]

Also, just throwing it out there, but with the hiring of Carlyle, there should be a lot of changes made. We need a checking line, so if Travis Moen leaves montreal dont be surprised if BB goes after him. Im not to familiar with Carlyle, so what do you think the leafs need to add?

[sanity]

Burke on CBC said he doesnt care where players are born, he justs wants good players? Well, to me its not just a coincidence that theres so many americans here. Theres plenty of Canadians out there that would make this team better. Burke has a huge ego, and lots of pride, so IMO he doesnt want to see Canadians win.

I think it comes down moreso towards players who he finds suited towards the type of teams he likes to construct, not their nationality. I mean really, his biggest trade so far was to get Phaneuf--Canadian. Lupol is also a Canadian born player which was an amazing trade for us (we also get Gardiner out of it).

Here is a history of his trades with Toronto http://communities.sportsnet.ca/thread/45240;jsessionid=M2JlN0TcgmfH2V448FNbypTw14T5xWCBrMjcnPYlqJjLnZC2hljf!131960199?decorator=print&displayFullThread=true Most of them take into account undoing the mess JFJ left. If anything I'd say the Connelly/Komie signing were total boner moves and since both are American gives that impression. I think Liles was a decent move (at least to mentor Gardiner) and the contract he did receive was less than the annual amount he was earning previously.

[sanity]

Also, just throwing it out there, but with the hiring of Carlyle, there should be a lot of changes made. We need a checking line, so if Travis Moen leaves montreal dont be surprised if BB goes after him. Im not to familiar with Carlyle, so what do you think the leafs need to add?

Too early to tell. We need size and scoring grit on our forward lines badly. One of either Reimer or Gustavsson should ideally be dealt in place of a capable starting goaltender as well. Reimer is 4 years younger, but between both of them its hard to tell who will end up being better in the long run.

Moen I wouldn't mind as a third line guy or something. He's steady and you know what you'll get from him on a game to game basis

[Merit]

Please get over this American only bull*hit. As if Brian Burke wouldn't draft a talented Ontarian. Here's the thing: being American and highly involved with the national program has allowed Burke an advantage which he's used to sign players THAT WOULD OTHERWISE HAVE SIGNED ELSEWHERE. Instead of complaining that he's signed Americans, be thankful that he's used an in to sign talent. My goodness, since when is having an advantage and using it a bad thing, especially for a sports team?

Who actually listens to Don Cherry these days anyway? Thankfully he's come around on Europeans. Maybe Americans are the final frontier. Tool.

[McFurious1]

Please get over this American only bull*hit. As if Brian Burke wouldn't draft a talented Ontarian. Here's the thing: being American and highly involved with the national program has allowed Burke an advantage which he's used to sign players THAT WOULD OTHERWISE HAVE SIGNED ELSEWHERE. Instead of complaining that he's signed Americans, be thankful that he's used an in to sign talent. My goodness, since when is having an advantage and using it a bad thing, especially for a sports team?

Who actually listens to Don Cherry these days anyway? Thankfully he's come around on Europeans. Maybe Americans are the final frontier. Tool.

Do you not find it odd the Leafs have no Ontarians on the team? I'm no Leaf fan but for Ontario who develop prob more hockey players than any other place in the world for the Toronto Maple Leafs not even have 1 player from Ontario on the team is a joke. It's not like the Raptor's who had to try going overseas since no one wanted to play in Canada. The Leafs should be a hot destination for Canadian/Ontario hockey players.

It should matter where your players are coming from to a certain extent. Would you rather have a soccer team with players from Asia or Brazil? Or a marthon runner from Canada or Kenya? Or a basketball team from USA or Russia. It all matters to an extent, and for hockey you better build around Canadian's just common sense to me.

For the Leafs have not 1 player from Ontario when the rest of the league and championship teams from the States do is a joke.

[Deron05]

BB has a HUGE ego. He puts his damn ego before anything. Like if he really thought about the long term of this team, eakins would be here. He hires his damn friends, he lives to much in the past.

[whysoserious]

Burke on CBC said he doesnt care where players are born, he justs wants good players? Well, to me its not just a coincidence that theres so many americans here. Theres plenty of Canadians out there that would make this team better. Burke has a huge ego, and lots of pride, so IMO he doesnt want to see Canadians win.

I think you are way off base here in the sense that he doesn't want Canadians to win. It has nothing to do with that, he's shown a propensity to just want good players. He's gone after Canadians in the past, Europeans and I think in Toronto he's just gone after a lot of US College players because early on he didn't have a lot of picks so he just signed a bunch of American College players. He does definitely seem to want to see American's succeed, but that would be no different than say Yzerman coming here and wanting to see Canadians succeed.

He's drafted some Canadians recently since he's had some quality picks.

I like a lot of what Burke has done in building up the farm system and getting tons of guys with potential, the likelihood is not all of them will succeed but he's gotten a lot of them and that gives us a chance.

The two things I don't like is he overestimated the team talent wise early and has signed some poor players like Komisarek. The other thing was not making a coaching change last summer.

[whysoserious]

BB has a HUGE ego. He puts his damn ego before anything. Like if he really thought about the long term of this team, eakins would be here. He hires his damn friends, he lives to much in the past.

You seem to have a huge bias. Eakins has done nothing to prove outright he deserved the job at this point. He was a candidate for the job, but not outright deserved it. The fact is Burke brought in a tougher coach than his previous one with NHL experience and a Stanley Cup, how can this be simply him hiring his friends. He hired what is considered a good choice. You can argue he's not the right man, but not because he's his friend.

Any GM is going to bring in people he's worked with or familiar with and our front office is pretty stacked with Burke here. That's a good thing, lots of people with lots of NHL/Hockey contacts and tons of experience, this is a good thing.

[Crowned]

For what it's worth, Burke has drafted 8 Ontario born players in the past 3 years.

[sanity]

Would you rather not have players like Kessel, Gardiner and Liles?

Just because Connelly and Komie both suck monkey balls doesn't mean all American born players are terrible.

Carlyle was one of the highly touted coaches who a lot of teams would've been in pursuit of. Whether you think he's Burke's buddy or not, we probably got the best coach who was available to us. Eakins might have deserved a shot, but its unclear if he wanted the job in the first place

[Crowned]

I don't care if the players are from Ontario, or if they're from Poland...assemble the best team possible. To go out of your way to draft Ontario born players isn't a way to build a hockey team. You choose the players that compliment your roster accordingly.

[kavan]

I think to an extent but he did us no good, you need to make a Push, even if Nash costs you some guys up and coming you forget he is young enough, there was a time we traded valuable pieces for the likes of Roberts/Nolen/Mogilny I think Nash would have been well worth stepping our game to the next level.

[Waylon Mercy]

I can't even blame MLSE on this one...

Both Burke and Colangelo looked like good hires at the time who would have thought
they both would be major failures. I don't like how Burkes managing the cap and he
keeps on over rating the turds hes assembled sounds a lot like Colangelo from a few
years ago.

[whysoserious]

I think to an extent but he did us no good, you need to make a Push, even if Nash costs you some guys up and coming you forget he is young enough, there was a time we traded valuable pieces for the likes of Roberts/Nolen/Mogilny I think Nash would have been well worth stepping our game to the next level.

The problem I see with just getting Nash is that he doesn't fill a pressing need and if you give up a couple of prospects/picks, you're still so weak down the middle which is probably the most pressing need. Now if you're talking about going sideways moving Kessel and something else for Nash, I'd be all over that. Both play the same position but I'd take Nash over Kessel in a heartbeat.

Getting Nash now, giving up the picks prospect, with the salaries would have would feel much more like the Sundin era when we could never get him the front-line talen he deserved to play with (even though Mogilny/Roberts did an admirable job).

[Brew666]

If it's a 1:1 deal Kessel for Nash, I'd do it, but Nash's value seems higher than that and all I'd really add to Kessel would be a mid pick or mid prospect. Nash is good b/c he's a big body whose hard to knock off the puck but his offensive output is equal to Kessel.

Honsetly, I might be the only one, but I'd give BB 2 more seasons, unless if he effs up this summer RFA signings (Kulemin, Franson) and then next year would be playoffs or he's gone. First of all, he has to be able to sign Kulemin and Franson back which means he has to shed some salary. One of his plans was to take on salary for the short term if it came w/ a prospect (Lupul/Gardiner, Lombardi/Franson). If he's not able to retain Kulemin and Franson due to these short term high salaries then it completely counters his plan of taking on salary to get talent.

Personally, I'd be shopping a Lupul package for an upgrade in the middle. If we can't do that to shed salary then we should be trying to get rid of Komi (if possible). I know he has a NMC but did BB give himself a window to deal like he usually puts in his contracts? If we're able to get Komi off the books, then we're laughing cap wise in 2 years b/c next year we have Connolly, Lombardi, Armstrong, MacArthur, and Lupul all coming off the books.

In a nutshell, I don't care if we're up against the cap next year if it doesn't impede us from signing/retaining our young talent. In 2 years we'll have more than enough cap space to sign who we need and add to a core that will be entering it's prime, backed with a solid farm system.

If we don't make the playoffs next year but are right on the door step, have some prospects (Kadri, Colborne, Carter, Holzer) stay with the big team and continue building our prospect pool, then I still give him one more year.