Matt Burt, we hardly knew ye...

...Yet Your Opinions About Brian Burke Are Highly Predictable.

I'm not vain enough to think that this article was meant as a rebuttal to my earlier piece about Brian Burke, Ron Wilson and their mis-handling of the Toronto Maple Leafs. I do think it's a very weird article. It's like a bizzaro version of what I wrote, where the author has been sipping on a little too much of the MLSE Kool-Aid. There are some particularly jarring parts that I'm going to break down FJM style because it's too surreal for me to ignore.

After a few introductory paragraphs, Burt unearths Brian Burke's classic quote:

"We require, as a team, proper levels of pugnacity, testosterone, truculence and belligerence," Burke famously said. "That's how our teams play."

When you read this, it's like Burke grabbed a thesaurus before the interview and looked to see how many variations of grit or toughness he could come up with. I wonder what would happen if the team only had the proper amounts of testosterone and truculence but not belligerence. Would only 4 out of the 5 players on the ice finish their checks? Would Thomas Kaberle suddenly become scared to pass the puck as Burke has suggested in the past? Mysteries abound when you play hockey chemistry!

With a full year in the Big Smoke under his belt, Burke has received his share of criticism for producing a team that's tough as nails, but not all that effective at putting the puck in the net.

No, Matt, you see the problem is that Burke hasn't received enough criticism for his failures so far. The Toronto media is inundated with stories like this one; fawning over his successes and glossing over his failures. And what does it mean to be tough as nails? Is this even true of Toronto? Other teams are so scared of the Leafs that they're only outscoring them by 25 (!) goals this year. Imagine if they were only kind of tough.

"My first thought was that there was too much emphasis on the toughness angle," says NHL on TSN analyst Ray Ferraro. "I have always felt that skill is harder to accumulate than size and grit. That would have been my priority, in particular since they do not have very much top-end skill."

While some onlookers argue the team is underachieving, others say they're actually achieving just fine, thank you.

"The Leafs' biggest problem is that they simply are not good enough," explained Ferraro. "I've played on bad teams - sometimes their best isn't enough. This is a time for teaching and repetition of structure - pointing out flaws all the time doesn't make a player better - (head coach Ron Wilson) has to help the current players be as good as they can be until they acquire a better group."

I never imagined that Ray Ferraro would be the voice of reason in all this, but thank you, thank you, thank you. Why isn't this obvious to everyone else whose job it is to notice these things? Thank you Ray, you are a hero in my books. You know Matt, maybe this is going to work out okay after all. Maybe you've come to your senses and this column is going somewhere and I...

Depth issues and other problems aside, there is a different angle to be considered, and that's the one that casts Burke's vision in a positive light, one that gives him the benefit of the doubt on a long-term timeline. After all, he didn't exactly inherit a fantastic hockey team, and one season does not a legacy make.

Oh no. Matt, no. Why did you go and do that? We all knew he inherited a bad team. But since he's inherited them, THEY'VE GOTTEN WORSE. And...

"It's far too early," says McGuire. "First of all, this is a major rebuild. The Maple Leafs just had no organizational depth at all. Burke has tried to be proactive rather than reactive. He's tried to drive the market and and I think he's done some very good things."

Now imagine this scenario: five years from now, hockey fans in Toronto are marveling at the completion of Burke's long-term vision as the team hoists the Cup for the first time since 1967.

Okay, now we've actually entered the realm of the fantastic. I can practically see your Leafs jersey there Matt.

In the Internet age, it's easy for any blogger to throw out vicious barbs (from the office, the classroom or even their parent's basements!) and have it count for something, but the reality is that judgements made this early in Burke's reign are simply unfair.

Why did you have to go and make this personal Matt? I'll have you know I moved out of my parents' basement 4 years ago now and that I very rarely ask them for money! At least Ray Ferraro is still on my side, right?

"I would have hired Brian if it was my team, and I still would," he [Ferraro] said of the first American-born GM in Maple Leafs history. "It isn't unfair to evaluate, but it's way too early to make any judgement."

Hurrm. I'm not exactly sure what Ray Ferraro means by that, but okay! I'll keep on evaluating without passing judgement!

There's a whole lot more of this stuff that I'll sludge through later. But really, it's just the same stuff from the Toronto media. I've been cynical enough for one evening.

NB

Canada is Still the World's Premiere Hockey Nation...

...But We Aren't Producing the Most Skilled Players

Since this will probably prove to be something of a touchy subject, I'll start by making a couple of stipulations:

1. Canada is still the strongest hockey country in the world.

2. Team Canada will enter Vancouver as the odds-on favourite to win the tournament.

3. My argument is not that Canadians are not the best all-around players, but rather that they are not the most individually skilled.

3. Canadians love hockey

4. I love hockey

5. I love Canada

Those last two points are especially important. Suggesting that Canadian hockey players are anything less than perfection is heresy and I might be putting myself at risk for some sort of group violence for criticizing the way Canadian players are taught to play the game (well, not really... i mean probably...hopefully.... err...on second thought I just won't leave the house for a couple of days).

I'll be blunt: The most individually skilled players in the game are not Canadian. For a country that produces a remarkably large percentage of the players in the NHL, dominates international competition, and in general is completely hockey-crazed, this is somewhat surprising. When I think of flashes of genius, of awe inspiring displays of skill, I think of Alex Ovechkin, I think of Evgeni Malkin, I think of Ilya Kovalchuk, I think of Marian Gaborik. I do think there are lots of really, really good Canadian players. Sidney Crosby, Jarome Iginla, Rick Nash all are outstanding talents. But, I don't think those guys have the same puck skills the first group does. Now, this is obviously highly subjective. You could put together a really superb Crosby-Iginla-Nash highlight reel and I would be forced to bow to their mastery of the game of hockey. I mean, Rick Nash did score this goal (By the way, I love the commentary in the clip. The colour guy says "My goodness gracious! Holey Moley!"). Nonetheless, they are not the most individually skilled players in the game.

I think there's a good reason for this. From a young age, canadian players are taught to take the safe play. "Ring it around the boards" or "Dump and chase to get the forecheck going" are two of the mantras of pretty well any hockey coach in Canada. Players are rewarded for what I would term boring play. How often will a coach congratulate a player for beating a defender one on one to create a great scoring chance? Instead, if there is a turnover, the player is likely to be reprimanded and benched. By putting team success ahead of the development of individual skills, hockey in Canada is producing a very specific type of player. How are young Canadian players ever going to develop the puck skills, let alone the confidence, to dangle a defender when they are constantly told not to take the risky play?

Watch Malkin, Kovalchuk or Ovechkin play. They attack every defender at full speed. When they get the puck, they want to score and if that involves beating the opposing team's players one on one, so be it. The fact that they do so with such frequency is no fluke. From a young age, they must have been allowed to develop puck skills and offensive skills. They were allowed to attack, attack, attack, and sometimes, they made mistakes. The type of skill set they posses doesn't just materialize.

I think the best example of this conservative attitude in Canadian hockey is reflected in the current debate over the lineup for Team Canada in Vancouver. To me, the most shocking aspect of the whole thing is how Mike Green and Marc Savard aren't either locks, or at least fairly sure things to make the team. Instead we talk about players like Shane Doan (?!) and Robyn Regehr (?!?!?!?) as vying for the last couple of spots. Now, both are perfectly good NHL players and play critical roles in their respective teams' success. But Green and Savard are exceptional talents. Watch how their offensive skills open up scoring opportunities for their teammates. Green has 25 points in 24 games, which is tied for the league lead for points by a defenseman. He scored 31 goals last year. And for all you people that love plus/minus, he's a tidy plus 5 on the year so far. Watch him make a breakout pass. Be awed by his skating ability. How is this guy not a lock for Team Canada? The answer is in our country's obsession with playing it safe and ringing it off the boards. Make the unspectacular play, force the other teams to make mistakes and hope to capitalize. Savard is viewed in generally the same light. How is someone like Jordan Staal a better fit? Does no one think to see that Savard is one of the very best distributors in the NHL?

It's not impossible for the super elite, individually skilled players to emerge from the Canadian hockey system. It's just that we make it ridiculously hard to do so. Until we change our attitudes about "dumping and chasing" and "playing it safe", it's not likely to be any different for the years to come. Canada will continue to be the powerhouse in hockey, with depth that is envied by all. Yet, we will lack that singular offensive talent, that player that when he gets the puck, as he winds up behind his net before charging up ice, forces everyone to rise from their seats with bated breath. We'll continue to win or lose as a cohesive unit with no one outstanding player showing off breath-taking skills. We'll win gritty. How wonderfully Canadian.

NB

Drafted Could Have Been Really Interesting...

...But Instead The Score Tried to Make a Quick Buck and it's Terrible

I should start by stating that I had intended to apply to be on the show. The premise sounded fascinating: The Score television network would scour the country looking for Canada's next sportscaster. One of the main reasons that I watch TSN instead of Rogers Sportsnet or The Score is the appeal of their on-air talent. I find Jay Onrait and Dan O'Toole pretty hilarious. I think that Darren Dutchyshen is practically a Canadian institution. Ask any of your friends that follows sports in this country and they'll have an opinion about the TV personalities on the three major networks. Hosting Sportscentre would be a dream come true for a lot of fans. Thousands of people would wait anxiously to showcase their talents. Think of it as American Idol, or So You Think You Can Dance, except for sports geeks doing their best play by play, and...wait, why did I think this would be a great idea again?

But, as it turns out, the problem wasn't with the premise of the program, but rather the execution. I should have known that there would be issues when The Score promoted the idea as "Gillette Drafted" instead of just plain "Drafted". In an era in which broadcasting anything, anything at all, to a national audience involves mass commercialization, the Gillette part of the name simply slipped my attention. I'm far too numb to this sort of thing to pick up on the subtleties of corporate sponsorships. What I didn't imagine was the lengths that The Score, and Gillette by proxy, would go to in order to promote the sponsor's product.

Every segment of the show was as much about promoting Gillette as it was about choosing the winner of the competition. I first became worried when during the initial interview phase, the candidates were asked about personal grooming and Gillette, etc. It got progressively worse, until the breaking point came when the candidates were set to interview Bas Rutten. Bas is a bad-ass dude, and the idea of just dropping the finalists in there to do an intervew with him without any preparation at all sounded very interesting. Unfortunately, before the interview itself, we were subjected to watching the finalists "prepare" for the interview by using Gillete products. Watch the first couple of minutes of Episode 40: Andy's Bad Hair Day. We have to watch him shave? Really? By the time the interview itself rolled around, I was so turned off by the shaving scene that I had lost all interest in the competition. The Score had effectively killed their own punchline with a terrible lead-up.

It got worse. Scroll up to the Journey and Transformation Episodes and watch how the makeup artist shamelessly shills the Gillette products at the end of the episode. I'm not naive about this sort of things. As I said at the start, broadcasting to a large audience requires sponsorship. But this was a whole new level. How does The Score expect to have ANY credibility with their viewers after this disaster? The home of the hardcore? You can honestly say that to me with a straight face?

If my criticism seems overly harsh, know that I would never write something this biting if the product was just crappy. It's not that it's bad, because then I would have just ignored it like so many other terrible programs. It's that The Score wasted a really great opportunity by chasing a few extra dollars. The poor soul that had the great idea in the first place must cry a little every time his dream is sold for a few more dollars every episode. How hard would it have been to call it Gillette Drafted and just thank the sponsors once or twice a show? Or run only Gillette ads during commercial breaks?

The great irony of all my rage is that I just bought a bottle of Gillette shampoo yesterday. In the deep recesses of Gillette's marketing department, someone is laughing maniacally.


NB

BREAKING NEWS!

...Actually no, not really at all.

However, the timing of this press release does seems highly suspicious to me. I think everyone was well aware of the fact that Roy Halladay wasn't re-signing with the Toronto Blue Jays after his contract expires next summer. Is this meant as one last olive branch to the fans? A way of saying: "Hey, we're about to trade our best player for pennies on the dollar, but look! We tried to re-sign him, we really did! It's just that our 'timelines for winning don't mesh'", perhaps?

This whole thing makes Paul Beeston seem so naive, when he's clearly not. Anyone with any remote interest in the Jays is aware Halladay is going to be traded. Beeston knows this is public knowledge. Just a guess, but I'd wager we're going to see the Halladay derby heat up in the next week or so.

Stay tuned.

Brian Burke and Ron Wilson are Bulletproof

...Or Maybe They Have a Thick Coat of Teflon?


These two must have incriminating pictures of every member of the Toronto media. The normally fickle hockey press corps, with the loudest voices emanating primarily from the panelists on TSN and Rogers Sportsnet, is somehow giving Brian Burke and Ron Wilson a relatively free pass for the absolute quagmire that is the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. Let's recap quickly for those that haven't been following:


1. Ron Wilson joins the Maple Leafs prior to the 2008-2009 season. Wilson is largely regarded as a major upgrade from his predecessor, Paul Maurice (I don't necessarily agree with this assertion, but this is the popularly held belief).


2. After a lot of posturing by both sides, the Maple Leafs and Brian Burke unite in holy matrimony on November 29th, 2008. Every single member of the media approves of the move. Talk of Brian Burke's history as a "winner" is bandied about freely. Glory days are sure to follow


3. Burke, on multiple occasions, goes on the record as saying no one on the Leafs current roster is safe, except maybe Luke Schenn. He promises the team will be harder to play against. He over-uses the word truculent to the point that all meaning is lost.


4. The Leafs finish a surprisingly respectable 34-35-13 for 81 points. At the outset of the 2008-2009 season, it was generally agreed that the Leafs would be one of the worst teams in the NHL. Ron Wilson is touted in some corners as a candidate for Coach of the Year.


5. In the weeks leading up to the NHL Draft, Burke makes it abundantly clear that he wants to move up to take Tavares. His refusal to include Luke Schenn in any trade eventually forces the Leafs to select from their original position, 7th. They select Nazim Kadry.


6. Burke makes a couple of free agent signings outside of the NHL. Christian Hanson, Tyler Bozak and Jonas Gustavsson join the team. Gustavsson is the only one of the three to make the team out of training camp.


7. Burke signs two well known NHL defensemen: Mike Komisarek and François Beauchemin. Both are regarded as being upgrades for the team's swiss cheese defense.


8. The most hotly debated of Burke's moves: the Phil Kessel trade. Burke trades the Leafs' first and second round picks in the 2010 draft, as well as the Leafs' first round pick in the 2011 draft to acquire the sniper. Kessel signs a 5 year, 27 million dollar contract.


That's a quick-hit synopsis of the Leafs under Burke and Wilson. Mix it all together and you have the Toronto Maple Leafs at 3-11-6 and in a state of complete disarray. Recently, Dave Feschuk of the Toronto Star wrote a column in which he interviewed sports prognosticator Ken Roberts. Mr. Roberts developed a complex simulation system that he uses to forecast the NHL season. In Mr. Roberts' simulations, the Leafs made the playoffs 1.7% of the time. Let's think about that number: 1.7%. Barely a quarter of the season has been played, and the Leafs are basically statistically eliminated.



John Ferguson Junior Part II?

Not to bring up the ghosts of Leafs GMs past, but if John Ferguson had a start to the season this bad, he would have been drawn and quartered by now. What exactly have Burke and Wilson done to give themselves so much credibility?

Wilson's supposed strength, bringing defensive accountability to his team, has turned out to be the team's biggest weakness. In 2008-2009, the Leafs gave up 293 goals, which ranked dead last in the NHL. This year, they have given up 77 goals, which currently ranks second last (Only Carolina has given up more, 80, and Toronto's got a whole game in hand to make up that difference). If they continue at their stunningly inept pace, the Leafs would give up a whopping 316 goals. That's amazingly terrible.

Wilson promised that players would be held accountable. Maybe the players are being held accountable for their play, but it doesn't seem to be doing them much good. I hate to speculate on locker room dynamics, and from what I've seen the Leafs do seem to play hard, but they are so far from cohesive it's scary.

Burke's record of player acquisition reads even worse. His three non-NHL signings are at best works in progress. Gustavsson has a 3.23 GAA and a save percentage of .901. It's early, but there's not a whole lot to go on there. Bozak and Hanson are still in the AHL. Maybe these three will work out, maybe, but things aren't exactly looking rosy on that front.

The NHL signings were absolute disasters. I don't know why anyone ever thought that signing Mike Komisarek to a 5 year contract at 4.5 (!!) million per year was a good idea. Komisarek has 12 goals, 46 assits for 58 points IN HIS ENTIRE CAREER. 377 games of offensive futility. For a supposedly defensively sound player, he sure seems to be out of position a lot too. I guess he's just trying to be truculent in his observing of defensive zone responsibility. The Beauchemin signing is definitely more defensible, but again, his defensive zone play hasn't exactly been inspiring.

And finally, the Kessel fiasco. The only reason this is even a conversation is because Kessel is playing out of his mind right now. And he hasn't even been THAT good. Kessel has 5 goals and 8 points in 8 games. Certainly a good thing, and he's looked sharp. But let's say he keeps that up (I doubt it, he's never been a point a game player), the Leafs gave up three of their four best chances to get better in the next two years for one point a game player. I wouldn't say he's even one of the 20 or 30 best players in the league.

Burke now has three assets that he could possibly trade: Kessel, Kaberle and Schenn. Anyone else on that team is absolutely toxic and no way another GM is touching them with a ten foot clown pole. What could he reasonably expect in return for Kaberle, the only one that he would probably trade? A top 6 forward and a second round pick? A first and third round pick? The Leafs would have taken 2 steps forward and 3 backwards. This is the amazing part about it, not only have Burke and Wilson made the Leafs worse in the short term, they are almost certainly worse off in the long term too. Where are they going?

Which brings me back to my original point. Why is Burke made of Teflon? What's his plan going forward? There is no argument to be made that he's rebuilding, and there's definitely not a claim to be made that the Leafs are better in the short term. And Wilson's team is the most disorganized and inefficient in the league; not exactly signs of quality coaching. I am not saying they need to be fired, it's a small sample size and they have a track record of reasonable success in the past. But please, please, someone hold these guys accountable. The media practically drove JFJ out with pitchforks and torches for much less than this disaster.

I wonder what the pictures depict.

NB

Thoughts on the Leafs...

...are coming tomorrow. Should be interesting.


NB