Posted on November - 14 - 2009 at 11:58 pm By: torontosportsmedia
What Should Brian Burke Do?
Wow, was it ugly early tonight. Right after another delayed start to honour the 1980’s Toronto maple leafs, the game ended. Before glass tiger front man sang oh Canada it was 2-0 and Colton Orr and Jamal myerss were in 2 staged fights. In a flash it was 3-1 and that was that.
3 and 15.
3 and 15!!!!
Has this team hit bottom yet? Is there any reason for hope?
Here, is the question leafs fans, we got the Gm everyone said we needed. What should Brian Burke do? Forget what he will do, what do you think he should do?
The reality I think is that he can’t make a trade right now. He will only overpay.. Does he throw vets to the minors? Does he call up kids? How much longer can Burke sit idly by and watch this train wreck? He must to a degree feel totally powerless. What’s a man to do?
Personally, I think the problem is one of perception. I think Burke should have kept selling extreme patience, I think people wouldn’t mind losing if there was a solid core of kids playing hard and learning. He went out and brought in vets and none withthe exception of Kessel has shown anything. What, it would seem is the point???????
So, your Burke, what would you do?
At this point I would be looking to play the kids. At this point, really, how could it hurt?
Hanson and Stalberg are relatively easy to call up and insert into the lineup; Bozak is a different story due to his cap number.
Then again, for those three to come up, three would have to go down … memo to Jason Blake: the good news is at least you won’t have to move. Wallin wouldn’t be missed by many fans, and although he seemed to wake up tonight, Mayers on the whole just hasn’t been a fit under Ron Wilson.
For Mayers in particular, it might be worth a shot for Burke to put him through waivers and see if there would be any takers. At half the contract (700k roughly, expires this offseason) on re-entry, there likely would be teams interested.
Finding a way to keep Gunnarsson up once Komisarek comes back would be worthwhile also … can never have too many mobile puck-movers on the blueline. One of Exelby or Finger would have to go to make that work, probably Exelby as he (quite frankly) has only had a minimal impact.
Burke should sucker punch Johnny Bower, that way he’d get his money and MLSE would save face by firing him………..I mean nobody fucks with Johnny
You may disagree with me but…my opinion is that their biggest problem is up the middle. The wingers aren’t as bad as you may think…none of them have a centre that can win faceoffs and lead the play. So, what does that mean? It means you have to wait for the off season to solve the real problem (guys like Marleau and Savard are UFA’s). Back to the question at hand. TSM is right, you can’t make a trade – we don’t have much to move and what we have we need to keep (Kessel, Kadri etc…). So, Brian needs a short term fix – his only goal now is to not finish in the bottom 5. What should he do? I too would give a couple of kids a shot…Let’s see what they can do…also, remember the climate of competition that Burke spoke about? Well….having a few guys demoted or benched for the kids might make them hungry again. I too would start with Hanson and Stalberg but what about newly acquired vet center Mike Zigomanis? He has 13 assists in 7 games…surely he’s worth a shot. Any use in bringing in Shanahan at this point? Any other vets (no, not Jason Allison)?
Zigomanis was with the Marlies on a tryout. I heard on 640 he signed a deal in Sweden. Not sure which team.
Jason Allison IS smiling somewhere right now, though. I can’t figure out how he doesn’t add to the skill level.
He should put on a monkey suit and sell peanuts downtown.
He’s already botched up the future of this team by trading away the 1st round picks when he really didn’t have to but he’s a monkey for the board of MLSE who’s only concern is getting this team into the playoffs so that they can make more $$$ at the end of the year.