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Brian Burke – Deadline Failure

Written by: admin on 8th March 2009

PHOTO BY SCOTT VANKOUGHNETT

Brian Burke likes to talk. Deadline day should have been his time to shine for the Maple Leafs. | read this item

Lets start with this.

Brian Burke is a great GM. Burke is a proven winner. Burke will rebuild the Leafs into a competitive team. It’s just a matter of time.

That being said, Burke’s inaugural trade deadline as general manager of the Maple Leafs has to be considered a failure.

With the ability to put his stamp on this team and truly begin the rebuild that is needed to correct this ailing franchise, Burke failed to do so. Instead, he played it safe for the most part and chose to make the moves that everyone expected him to make.

Burke summed up his deadline achievements like this.

“I’m not doing cartwheels,” said Burke

Neither are we Brian.

The trades of Nik Antropov and Dominic Moore, both UFA’s this summer, came as no surprise to anyone. While the returning assets from those deals, two second-round draft picks and a conditional pick, are precisely the type of deals the Leafs needed to make, there were many more deals that should have been made as well.

Burke should have used the deadline to strip his roster of any players of value that don’t fit the Burke mold. In particular, Matt Stajan and Alexei Ponikarovsky.

Burke failed to put his stamp on this team and “his” Maple Leafs are still virtually Cliff Fletcher’s version of the Leafs.

Burke can say whatever he wants about getting fair value for his players, but I would like to understand when he figures that these two players will ever have their trade value this high again?

If the Leafs were able to turn Moore into a second-round pick, then acquiring an additional second-rounder for Stajan was surely in the cards. Stajan had more points than Moore, is younger than Moore, and also happens to be signed through next season at a very affordable rate.

As for Ponikarovsky, it was rumoured that he was discussed in a deal with the Nashville Predators. While only those involved in the deal truly know the package that was offered for Poni, with the statistical comparisons to Antropov and that fact that he is the same age and signed through next season, one would have to assume that a second-rounder would have been at the forefront of those discussions.

Therefore, had Burke chosen to move these two players in addition to Antropov and Moore, the Leafs would have accumulated four second round picks in this year’s entry draft.

In other words, in addition to their first-round pick, the Leafs would have guaranteed themselves five selections in the first 60 picks of this year’s entry draft.

For a team that complains about having an empty prospect cupboard, those five draft picks would surely have helped solve that problem.

In addition to accumulating picks from making those deals, the Leafs would have also given themselves increased salary cap space moving forward, which is extremely important as the NHL moves into uncertain economic times.

However, he didn’t make those types of deals.

As a result, Burke failed to put his stamp on this team and “his” Maple Leafs are still virtually Cliff Fletcher’s version of the Leafs. That version means a roster that is not quite good enough to make the playoffs and not quite bad enough to get a good draft pick. As a result, the Leafs will continue down this path of mediocrity that they have been on for the past four seasons.

And if you still don’t think that this deadline was a failure for Burke, just remember these three things.

1) He traded two of his top four scorers and received no prospects as part of those deals.
2) He did the absolute minimum in terms of helping his team move towards a top-five pick.
3) His first and only additions to the Maple Leafs during his first trade deadline will go down as Martin Gerber and Erik Reitz.

Lets hope that Burke has some tricks up his sleeve prior to the entry draft in June, or else it may very well be another season of Cliff’s team.

On another note, the winners and losers of Wednesday’s trade deadline.

Winners

Flames – Anytime you land the big fish without having to alter your lineup drastically is a job well done. The addition of Jordan Leopold will also provide the puck moving presence that the team lost with the injury to Mark Giordano.

Coyotes – The team is in financial hell and needed to unload salary. Not only did they do that, but they were able to continue to re-stock their franchise with a variety of talented young players and draft picks that will hopefully make this team the deepest young team in the league just in time for them to move back to a Canadian market.

Oilers – People have not said much about the job that rookie GM Steve Tambellini did. Simply put, he was involved in the most interesting deal of the day in which he managed to pluck 24-year-old Patrick O’Sullivan virtually free. Why do I say free? When you examine that deal, he traded UFA Erik Cole and replaced him with UFA Ales Kotalik who is the same age and has better numbers. He only traded one of his own picks, a fifth round pick, and still managed to walk away with a great young player in O’Sullivan. Mr. Tambellini, I give you deal of the day.

Losers

Canadiens – Stood pat during the deadline of their 100th anniversary season. They went on to lose 5-1 to Buffalo that night. Enough said.

Capitals – Needed a solid veteran goalie as insurance for when (not if) Theodore collapses this spring. Could have used a veteran d-man with shutdown experience. Could have used some secondary scoring help to support the two Super-Russians named Alex.

Checklist = 0/3

Blue Jackets – I have heard a lot of praise for both teams involved in the Leclaire-Vermette swap with Ottawa, and I can’t understand why. I am shocked to say it due to his awful track record, but the only one that deserves praise for this deal is Bryan Murray who swindled the Jackets for not only Leclaire but also a second-round pick.

When you examine the deals yesterday, in particular the ones for Antropov and Guerin, Vermette probably would have qualified for a second-rounder straight up. However, the veteran Ottawa GM also managed to get his hands on franchise goalie that had nine shutouts just a year ago.

Vermette on the other hand, is a 26-year-old underachiever that sports the amazing stats of 28 points in 64 games along with an awesome plus/minus rating of -12. That of course only occurring with the luxury of playing on the same team with pure scorers like Heatley, Spezza, and Alfredsson. I bet Rick Nash is just thrilled.

For OpenIceHockey.com, I’m Jay Harnett.

Topics: Alexi Ponikarovsky, Calgary Flames, Columbus Blue Jackets, Dominic Moore, Edmonton Oilers, GM Brian Burke, Montreal Canadiens, Nik Antropov, Phoenix Coyotes, Toronto Maple Leafs, Washington Capitals