Don’t Plan The Parade Route Yet

By E. Spencer Kyte
Love of Sports Correspondent

The event everyone knew would take place one day or another is apparently pretty close to happening.

Former Anaheim GM Brian Burke and the Toronto Maple Leafs are closing in on a contract to put the man who brought the Stanley Cup to California at the helm of the Good Ship Maple Leaf.

While Leafs fans will undoubtedly rejoice and herald this as the second coming of the Messiah, color me a little bit sceptical that Burke is to the Maple Leafs organization as Buckley’s is to cold symptoms.

There is no denying that the guy is a great hockey mind. If given a mulligan for his one year in Hartford – and only because it’s Hartford and you can’t really expect much of someone in one year – Burke has a resume that ranks him near the top of the league as far as successful General Managers.

Some will say he only has one Stanley Cup during his time around the league in both Vancouver and Anaheim, but there are a few things to remember here:

1. It’s one more Stanley Cup than a whole lot of GMs have.
2. Vancouver improved for four consecutive seasons under Burke’s command, including back-to-back 100 point seasons.
3. The Western Conference was a powerhouse during his time in Vancouver with Detroit, Colorado and Dallas all collecting Cups
4. The guy won it all in only his second year in Anaheim.

Personally, I put him behind Kenny Holland in Detroit on the talent scale, but despite his smart hockey mind, Toronto is still five years away from even contending for a Stanley Cup.

This isn’t the old NHL, where Burke could convince the powers that be in Toronto to open up their wallets and shell out oodles and oodles of cash for top flight free agents across the board. The process that Cliff Fletcher started will have to be continued, grooming young players, drafting wisely and spending free agent money correctly; Burke is an excellent man for that job.

However, a process like that takes time – lots of time – especially when you consider what he has to work with in Toronto.

There isn’t a top line NHLer amongst the group of forwards. Anyone who would claim otherwise needs to give their head a shake. This is a team of mostly third line forwards with a couple interesting youngsters with second line potential in Grabovski and Kulemin.

The blueline is somewhat better as Tomas Kaberle is quality, Luke Schenn will grow into the next Chris Pronger and you could do a lot worse than rolling out Pavel Kubina and Jeff Finger every night, though Finger is drastically overpaid.

Vesa Toskala actually poses an interesting problem: he’s easily the best trading chip Toronto has at their disposal with the dearth of goaltending talent currently afflicting the league, but he’s playing poorly this season and, well, there aren’t many other options in Toronto.

And the cupboard is close to bare with the AHL Marlies, too.

Jiri Tlusty might be alright, but Justin Pogge is proving he’s clearly not the Franchise Goalie many expected him to be after his World Junior performance a few years back. Good thing John Ferguson, Jr. shipped Tuukka Rask to Boston.

If I’m Brian Burke – and my bank account and birth certificate clearly indicate that I am not – here is what I do:

• Get what I can for the pieces I can move with absolutely no one outside of Schenn being off limits.
• Bring Tlusty up and find out right here, right now if he’s going to be a goal scorer in the NHL or a guy in the mould of Radim Vrbata that scores 15 a year and leaves you wondering how he doesn’t score more.
• Acquire a young goaltender in need of an opportunity. Despite the lack of talent between the pipes in a number of NHL cities, there are guys like Tobias Stephen, Jonas Hiller, Pekka Rinne or Andrej Pavelec who need an opportunity. Pascal Leclaire would be a more proven option from Columbus as well seeing as Steve Mason has proven he’s ready.
• Go with what you have left this season and see how the ping pong balls fall come draft time. One or two are both potential franchise players (Tavares and Hedman), but anything else is a crapshoot.

There aren’t many other options.

The key of all of this – as is always the case in Leaf Land – is how much freedom Burke is afforded by Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, the aforementioned powers that be. If they give him the keys and tell him to drive, prepare for a couple leaner years and a complete overhaul. If they try to ride shotgun and give him directions, be prepared to have another GM Search Committee in place sooner than you expected.

Either way, the Stanley Cup drought is going to continue ... at least for a few more years.