[Firing] Burke Done in TO

[Down by the River]

I saw that too, I also saw Nonis say "We don't discuss pending transactions" when asked about Roberto, wonder if he is really going to step up and make a deal if he he hasn't already.

[DeNiro]

The Columbus GM just sucks at negotiating, he screwed himself.

[Pears]

What ppl are forgetting, is WE NEED CENTERMEN!!!

I'd do Luongo for Bozak, Kadri, 2013 first.

That's fairish.

Alternatively we trade for Gardiner and flip him or Edler to Philly for couturier!

[Pears]

When I heard of Burke's firing I was basically like The only time I would've thought Burkie would be fired was at the end of the season if the Leafs missed the playoffs again.

[Markus Alexander Cody]

Ah well.. Burke will find success somewhere else on another team. A team that needs to sell tickets or a team that needs a GM who is willing to make it a better team will hire him.

[higgyfan]

If Burke was to be fired for hockey reasons, then he would've been fired long ago.

Burke was hated by all the media there. (Notice that not one of them over there has come to his defense?) So when two media giants, who almost all those media guys work for, bought the team, a 'win for the media' over Burke there was upcoming.

But their hate was justified. Burke was abrasive and he banned a lot of them. Fine to do, IF you're winning.

Under Bell and Rogers, they obviously want somebody less antagonistic to fit in with their corporate agenda, which would be to have their brand be more easily accessed by the media outlets which they also own.

His antagonism likely 'got personal' often when somebody in the board room suggested that he do something that he didn't want to do.

imho His firing has nothing to do with Luongo or any other hockey-related reason. imho The timing is awful, but it likely indicated that the decision was made right away. Bringing in Carlyle mid-season was clearly an act of panic by a soon-to-be-fired GM. When they still didn't make the playoffs, that was that. MLSE should've just done it then, but MLSE has a tendency to do stupid-looking things.

Nonis is far less abrasive, of course, and is more likeable by the media. His robotic, vague non-answers will be a refreshing change from Burke's frack off approach.

But as far as a hockey move, this firing and the timing of it is ridiculous, and has continued ownership meddling written all over it.

Does Luongo want to be part of that?

PS. As far as i'm concerned, TO, the media and the fans have the franchise they deserve: A bloated blue corpse, to be forever gnawed at by hundreds of conniving rat reporters, held up by the strings of a fat pig puppetmaster ownership group who doesn't give a frack about hockey.

[Smashian Kassian]

Interesting that he used the term 'pending transaction'. A pending transaction would suggest that a deal is actually in place.

[elvis15]

The Columbus GM just sucks at negotiating, he screwed himself.

[*vInTaGe*]

Weird timing, didn't see it coming.

[canuck_trevor16]

I think burke was a scapegoat and that MLSE was just tired of losing with no playoff revenue

[UFCanuck]

He also had Nash demanding a trade, where Luongo isn't doing that. CBJ lost some value to get a deal done as a result, but still that's more than what was mentioned in return for Lu. We could get a portion of that type of return (picture a roster player, a prospect and a pick rather than 2 roster players a prospect and a pick).

Will Nonis give that up? If it's not all top end, then I think so, and I think they know Bozak isn't quite as good as he appears on paper so would be willing to trade him versus re-signing him.

Calm down. We could use a centerman to fill in either on the 2nd while Kes is out, or specifically for our 3rd, but we hardly need two (Bozak and Kadri, or one of them and Couturier).

[TOMapleLaughs]

Too bad we don't face em this season.

[Gollumpus]

EDIT: Playoofs!? Don't talk about playoofs?! Damn spelling.

[DeNiro]

Isn't it funny how Burke always comes in and tries to do the quick fix, and then Nonis is there to pick up the pieces.

Now Nonis will likely do what he did in Vancouver and try and build from the net out, and restock the prospect cupboard.

[Smashian Kassian]

I think burke was a scapegoat and that MLSE was just tired of losing with no playoff revenue

[î мцšт вяздк чфµ]

laffs want Lu to fill GM role.

[spliced]

They can't be serious with Nonis. He must be a stop gap until they get someone for next season.

[Vansicle]

Gillis quote on what Columbus wanted for Nash “We were involved [in talks with the Blue Jackets leading up to the trade deadline], but what Columbus wanted to get from us would have destroyed our team."

Destroying our team would be asking for guys like Kesler and Schneider. Their GM was too aggressive and it ended up biting him. If he was patient he easily could have gotten a better deal.

[The Bookie]

What Went Wrong for Brian Burke?

Let’s start with the easy part: Brian Burke failed in Toronto.

There’s really no way to spin it otherwise. Some people will try, because that’s how these things always work, but it’s futile. Brian Burke failed.

He came to the Maple Leafs in 2008 when it seemed that the franchise had hit rock bottom, and, as general manager, he never made it significantly better. He missed the NHL playoffs all four years. He took over a team coming off an 83-point season that everyone agreed was a disaster and managed to top that total only once. He compiled a .490 winning percentage, which, in a league that gives out points for losing, is indisputably awful.

All of that might have been acceptable if Burke, who was fired Wednesday, could point to an organization stocked with can’t-miss prospects. But the Leafs don’t even have that. The farm system is in better shape than it was when he inherited it, because it would've been nearly impossible for it not to be. But not by much, and with the (optimistically) possible exception of defenseman Morgan Rielly, it’s lacking the sort of top-tier young talent that almost all of today’s winning NHL teams are built around.

No playoffs. No blue chips. No progress. And, increasingly, no hope. That’s failure, any way you cut it.

So that’s the easy part. Now the harder question: Why? Why did someone who seemed like such a perfect fit for the job fail so spectacularly?

Remember, from the moment the Leafs started their GM search in the spring of 2008, the whole thing felt like a sham. What search? Brian Burke was the man for the job. It so happened that he was already under contract to another NHL team, but that was a minor complication that could be worked around. And by November, mysteriously, <a href="http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=257760&lid=headline&lpos=topStory_main" style="text-decoration: initial; color: rgb(188, 19, 26);" target="_blank">it had been.

In a town where the hockey media demands to be fed constantly, Burke was a soundbite machine. In an organization where meddling executives and board members kept sticking their fingers into every decision, Burke was an intimidator who’d send the suits scurrying. In the aftermath of years of aimless management that drifted along without a plan, Burke would look you right in the eye, tell you what he was going to do, and then go out and do it.

Most importantly for a franchise starving for a championship, Burke was a winner. Until, suddenly, he wasn’t anymore.

In hindsight, Burke doomed himself from the start. In a miscalculation that will become his legacy in Toronto, he decided that he wouldn’t rebuild, at least not in the traditional sense of burning everything to the ground and starting over. He wouldn’t gut the roster to collect high draft picks while ignoring the standings. He would not tank. Burke had no patience for that approach — “Maybe because of my age,” he’d offer later — so he set out to prove he could do it faster.

And let’s be clear: It didn’t have to be that way. Brian Burke could have stood up on his first day on the job and said, “Look, things here are a mess, and I’m going to roll a grenade into the whole operation. It’s going to be ugly and it’s going be painful, and it will stay that way for at least a few years and maybe more. But stick with me and I’ll lead you through to the other side.” Maple Leafs fans would have followed him into that battle with smiles on their faces. He had that opportunity. He declined it.

Instead, he made it very clear from Day 1 that he could turn the Leafs around more quickly. And he backed up that hubris by trading two first-round picks for Phil Kessel during his first offseason in Toronto. That Boston trade wasn’t the disaster it’s often made out to be — plenty of GMs would love for their worst trade to be the one that brought in a top 10 scorer in his prime — but it set the tone for everything that followed. Burke didn’t just call his shot; he tore down his safety net. And then the team he’d put his faith in took one step off the platform and plummeted.

And even more frustrating for fans, Burke seemed to insist on trying to turn things around with one hand tied behind his back. He refused to take advantage of loopholes in the CBA that other big-market teams happily exploited. He imposed his own personal trade freezes and railed against surprise offer sheets and tiptoed around asking players to waive no-trade clauses. His personal code of ethics always seemed to come first. When you’re winning, that makes you an admirable man. But when you keep losing, it makes you an admirable man who keeps losing, and everybody just sort of forgets about that first part.

Make no mistake: Brian Burke, the man, is about as admirable as they come. Oh, sure, he often came across as a thin-skinned bully, especially with the media. He also worked tirelessly for charity, was fiercely loyal in a business where few are, and carried on with an almost unimaginable strength after the death of his son Brendan. The important work done by Burke and his family to build acceptance of gay athletes has a chance to live on long after Burke’s time in Toronto has been forgotten.

But when it comes to wins and losses, none of that matters. (And please say a small prayer for Maple Leafs fans that this really is about wins and losses, and not about Burke’s ability to play nice with his new corporate masters as some have speculated, because if that’s the case, then this franchise might never win again and wouldn’t deserve to.) Burke may be a good man, but so far in Toronto, he hadn’t been a winning one.

Was he given enough time? Not really, in the sense that nobody who was around in 2008 thought the Leafs could be turned into contenders in less than four full seasons. Rebuilding from scratch takes at least five years, the conventional wisdom goes, and a check of the calendar shows Burke didn’t get that. If it takes you five hours to drive to your in-laws’ house and your spouse starts asking “are we there yet?” after four, you’re going to get cranky.

But Burke’s problem was that he was four hours into the trip and hadn’t made it out of the driveway yet. Or, to torture the metaphor even further, he’d made a wrong turn getting onto the highway and was speeding off determinedly in the wrong direction. Knowing exactly where you want go doesn't mean much if everyone else can see that you’re not going to make it before time runs out.

For Brian Burke, time ran out. He failed. And he won’t get a chance to fix it now.

[TOMapleLaughs]

The Blindside.