He's absolutely bang on with everything.
When Burke got here, his exact words were "July 1st will be our draft" and now suddenly it's the biggest mistake day of the year along with trade deadline....so there's those two main days GONE.
And it's always good to know that Fletcher is working in the background with his "draft, shmaft" attitude.
The best line Berger wrote was:
Burke’s “I-have-no-patience-for-a-five-year-plan” has very likely put the Leafs in a ten-year plan.
He was dead on with that.
Nobody doubts that while Burke has been trying to fast track this rebuild he has added very decent prospects that the franchise hasn't had in decades...but they're mostly 7-8 out of 10 type prospects with absolutely no 9 or 10 out of 10 A level guys.
He's Franked up big time and he knows it. Problem is he will never admit it. The Beauchemin trade is likely the only thing that's saved his job to this point...without that deal the Leafs would have finished dead last last season.
- Juice
You are taking the July 1st will be our draft out of context.... That comment was used because of the Kessel trade... he had no 1st or 2nd picks. What else could Burke say at the time. Granted he poop the bed on that UFA day but that's the underlying truth to the comment.
To this point Burke has made 4 bad UFA signings - Beauchemin (cleaned up the mess) Armstrong (cleaned up the mess) Komisarek and Connolly....
He made a couple mistakes and corrected the mistake. He has 2 mistakes left now and lets see if he can correct them. poop there may not even be a season and Connolly is gone and Komi is next years buyout
Where Burke should be taken to task is not burying players, and I don't give a crap about the optics to future UFA's... good UFA's don't come here anyway, not until the team starts to win. Connolly and Lombardi if not traded should be buried to make room for the younger players in Kadri, Frattin, Colborne etc
Part 2 of Burkes idiocy is in not handing out the long long term contracts. Too many impact players have passed him by. Yes he has to overpay to get Parise, Kovalchuk, Richards but he's not doing a traditional rebuild due to Kessel trade so what exactly is he doing then?
