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Didn’t we do this last summer with Kane? It appears the rumour mill in Winnipeg is heating up early this off-season as Winnipeg Free Press stalwart Gary Lawless penned a piece which states that it is highly unlikely Burmistrov returns to Winnipeg. In fact Lawless cites his sources as saying the young Russian will not sign a contract in Winnipeg as an RFA.
If you want the goods as
Gary delivers them read it
HERE.
I’m not going to dispute Gary’s sources and story- what is there to dispute? There is more than enough evidence just from what fans have seen in two seasons to suggest that the player might be unhappy with…the Jets.
Therein lies what may be the issue- it’s not the city, or the fans, or the climate it’s the team or perhaps more specifically parts of the team, namely Claude Noel.
If you want to understand why I don’t think Burmistrov has an issue with the city read this piece I wrote back in the
early winter of 2011.
Where things get murky is at the finish of the inaugural season. Paul Waldie of the Globe and Mail wrote a piece based on an email he received from a fan that had information from a chance breakfast talk with Claude Noel. In the conversation Chuck, the fan, tells of how Noel let Burmistrov have it in his exit interview. Fast forward to this season and down the stretch with the Jets fighting for a playoff spot Burmistrov finds himself benched in New Jersey for half a game and then not see the ice for the next five games.
Burmi-gate was born.
The hashtag
#freeburmistrov started showing up all over Twitter and the icing on the cake happened at a Jets home game. In what could not have been planned any better, Jets in-arena game host Dave Wheeler interviewed a young boy. The boy had won the Scotia Bank skater contest to come out with the team for the pre-game skate and carry the flag. When Wheeler asked him who his favourite Jet was the boy announced with pride “Burmistrov” and the crowd erupted. This was right in the middle of the forward’s press box stint.
Criticism and commentary flowed like Guiness at an Irish wake during Burmi-gate and the consensus became that it was time for the coach and player to find their middle ground and move on. After the press box shift Burmistrov had 1 goal and 2 assists and was –6 to finish the season. Hardly impressive and not stats that you think a player looking to improve his game would post down the stretch in a playoff drive.
There are 12 Jets forwards who played 30 or more games this season and Burmistrov was one of them.
Corsi on (On-Ice Shot Differential (goals + saves + missed shots + blocks). This is expressed as a rate stat per 60 minutes): 2nd
On-Ice Save %: 3rd
PDO (PDO is the sum of "On-Ice Shooting Percentage" and "On-Ice Save Percentage" while a player was on the ice. It regresses very heavily to the mean in the long-run: a team or player well above 1000 has generally played in good luck and should expect to drop going forward and vice-versa.)
5th at 997
Offensive Zone Start: 5th 52% of the time
Offensive Zone Finish: 2nd at 56% of the time
I won’t bore you with the other fancy stats- there are folks like Yost and the guys at
arctic ice hockey. What I will say is Burmistrov sits right in the middle of the pack in terms of the quality of who he plays with and who he plays against. He’s being used as a utility player with no true role or line mates.
Once again the depth issues of the Jets are surfacing. Whether you believe Burmistrov could be an elite scoring forward or a fierce checking center there is no denying his skill but it seems Noel and the Jets are not capable of capitalizing on it.
Some times personalities clash, some times there’s some growing up to do, but no matter what the performance of Busmistrov is not solely the player’s fault. What should be troubling to Jets fans is that one player who is good depth with upside is now allegedly wanting out. That sends a message far beyond the city limits and now it’s time for damage control from the team.
It might be easy to see why Burmistrov is unhappy with the situation with the Jets but should he be the only one? Take a look at the quality of teammates Evander Kane plays with:
Corsi QoT (Average Corsi of Teammates, weighted by ice time together.): -1.684
Only Santorelli (waiver pick up from Florida), Miettinen, (just 22GP) Thorburn, Peluso, (5GP) and Gagnon (10GP) had worse teammates. They combined for 16 points, just 6 more than Burmistrov and 17 less than Kane.
While Burmistrov may have a personal reason for wanting away from the Jets environment, professionally speaking Kane has the better reason. Jets fans should hope this unhappy malaise is not contagious and that GM Kevin Chevaldayoff has some good treatments lined up if it is.
Winnipeg Jets Blogger •Winnipeg Jets Writer • 
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