Sportsnet and TSN are both reporting that the deal is done, or as close to done as you can get, with Brian Burke to become the new President and General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs.  He’ll become the teams 13th GM in their 92 year history, reportedly signing a 6 year deal in the neighbourhood of $18 million.  And now we can all move on.

It’s been the worst kept secret in sports, reminiscent of when Tom Higgins was the lame duck Head Coach of the Calgary Stampeders.  We all knew he was done at the end of the season, and we all knew John Hufnagel was going to take over.  Yet, Stamps brass kept denying and denying and denying to the media.  Same here, as we’ve known about this for months…ever since Anaheim visited Toronto last year, the speculation has run rampant.  And now, it’s finally done.

For the Leafs, they needed to get this done sooner rather than later.  It would have made no sense for them to hold off any longer.  When it was announced Burke was stepping down as GM in Anaheim a couple weeks ago, the writing was on the wall, and it was just a matter of when he was Toronto bound, not if.  Even though Cliff Fletcher was fine being the interim GM, the Leafs needed to get this done in a quick fashion.  While most personnel decisions have been made for this season, Burke now has a solid 6 months to get familiar with the team, and start to lay the foundation for his long term plan.  Had it been announced next off-season, I believe it would have stalled the Leafs rebuilding plan another year.  With their guy now in place, the rebuild can really begin (because, sorry Leafs fans, the last 3 years don’t count).

But I caution Leafs fans…I don’t see Burke having the overwhelming, early success in Toronto as he had in his last 2 stops, Anaheim and Vancouver.   Lets start with the Canucks, where he re-joined in 1998.  The Leafs situation is more comparable to when he started in Van as opposed to Anaheim.  However, I believe the Canucks had far more solid pieces in place for Burke to work with.  Naslund, Bertuzzi, Ohlund, and Cooke were all in place for Burke to try and form a core.  Then he got to work, doing an outstanding job working around those players…he drafted the Sedin’s, Kevin Bieksa, Ryan Kesler and Alex Edler.  He also acquired Sami Salo, and all those players were huge in Vancouver’s success.

In Anaheim, he arrived with players like Getzlaf, Perry, Giguere, and McDonald in place.  Once again, he recognized a core and built around them, adding Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger, Francois Beauchemin, and Teemu Selanne among others to help this team win their first Stanley Cup.

This is no knock on Burke, but the talent assembled in Toronto is nowhere close to that of his previous 2 stops.  What’s the core right now in TO?  Luke Schenn, Nik Antropov, Niklas Hagman, maybe Grabovski and Toskala.  I’m sorry, that doesn’t scream winning.  Now, I have full confidence that Burke will be able to get this team on track, but I don’t see it happening as quickly as it has in the past.  This could take a few more painful years until the benefits start to show.  Ron Wilson’s a great coach and needs to stay there, and Burke is the perfect guy to help Toronto return to relevance.  It just won’t happen overnight.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 27th, 2008 at 5:59 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.