Brophy on Leafs: The spotlight’s on Burke
Posted March 2, 2012 11:51 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Too little, too late?
A few days after doing nothing significant at the trade deadline to improve his struggling hockey team and then explaining his rational as, “We’re sticking with the blueprint,” Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke fired his old pal Ron Wilson and replaced him with his more successful old pal Randy Carlyle.
Watch the live Toronto Maple Leafs press conference on sportsnet.ca and Sportsnet ONE at 10 a.m. ET Saturday.
That was on the blueprint? Oh my.
Burke and Wilson played college hockey together. Not bad.
Burke and Carlyle won the Stanley Cup together. All in!
With the Leafs’ season going down the drain, Burke pulled out his last arrow and fired. Nailed his coach right in the heart.
Now, once and for all, the spotlight is on the GM. It is his team. Burke didn’t hire Wilson in Toronto and the longer he held on to him as coach, the longer he could deflect the team’s lack of success away from himself.
The Leafs — Burke’s Leafs — have lost six in a row. They have won just once in their last 11 games. They don’t have a bona-fide No. 1 goalie. They are soft in their own zone. They lack leadership. They don’t have a bona-fide No. 1 goalie. They can’t kill penalties. They are easily intimidated.
And they don’t have a bona-fide No. 1 goalie.
The Leafs went through a tough practice Friday morning in Brossard, a suburb of Montreal, in preparation for their Saturday night showdown against the Canadiens in Montreal. Obviously something had to change, but given the fact Burke had stood by his man to this point, it seems somewhat surprising — and quite perhaps far too late where this year’s playoffs are concerned — to make such a monumental decision.
Yet it happened.
Another knee-jerk reaction from the GM? Part of the, uh, blueprint?
Come on. There is no blueprint. No plan.
If there is, Burke should lay it out in his post-Wilson press conference.
Lay it out: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3…
You’d have to think the decision to hire Carlyle officially pushed AHL coach Dallas Eakins out the door of the Leafs organization. Eakins is one of the most highly-regarded NHL-ready coaches around, but if Carlyle is now the Leafs’ bench boss, Eakins will certainly seek NHL employment elsewhere. Carlyle has received a three-year deal from the Leafs. He took a cab ride to the ACC instead of a bus ride to Peoria.
As for the Leafs players, they didn’t want to say too much following the coaching change. A glut of Leafs regulars poured out of cabs in front of their hotel and refused to comment on their team’s changing situation — as is their prerogative. It was news to them, too, after all.
A few, however, addressed the situation.
“Ronnie did a great job,” defenceman Cody Franson said. “It’s just one of those things. We’re going through some stuff right now and they made a move they felt was necessary and it’s just part of the game. We aren’t that far out and we have to make every effort to make a solid move at (making the playoffs). It hasn’t gone that well lately, but time has not run out on us yet and we’re going to make a solid push.”
Added Mike Brown: “Players have to play; it doesn’t matter who is (coaching). It’s a job. Myself, I’m going to play. You can’t worry about it too much. It’s part of the business. Randy won the Cup in Anaheim and he’s a good coach.”
Asked if the Leafs players are affected by their coach’s firing, Brown took the high road.
“It is a business,” he said. “Players have to play; coaches coach and upper management does its job. You can’t do much more than doing your own job. It’s management’s decision and I still have to play.”
