I can still hear Leaf fans parading over this move. As TSN's Bob McKenzie first reported, the Leafs decided this was the day Brian Burke would no longer be their GM.
Obviously, this is viewed as a good thing. Burke's failure to put together a good roster and make the playoffs is the reason he is no longer GM (he is still there as an "advisor"). The fact he didn't want to trade for Luongo is irrelevant. The Kessel trade has been what his tenure has been defined by. So why not fired him now and start over now? A (semi-) new season to get started and assess what to do, get the players to gel into Carlyle's system, and hopefully get new personnel aboard.
On the other hand, firing Burke now doesn't make sense. This isn't a "real" season, so why expect anything? New ownership (officially) took over in August, so why didn't they pull the trigger then? Granted, the lockout took away time that could have been used to assess this situation. What the Leafs probably should have done is this: Keep Burke and the crew around for this season, then during the offseason fire him and his crew and bring in new people. It was surprising how he was the only one relieved of his job but no one else.
To recycle a joke I made earlier (and terribly misspelled it): The Burke firing is the first known instance of Bell and Rogers satisfying ~99% of their customers.
Owners Ratify CBA
So the owners held up their end and and approved the CBA 30-0. So of course there would be a press conference for it. There was just two things I took away from it.
- Jeremy Jacobs spoke. I am disappointed at everyone in the room for not going "guy who threw shoes at Bush" mode. If someone had done that, they would probably never have to pay for a beer again.
- Outside of the usual Bettman-esque presser, he issued an apology. Just listening to it, he had me for a second. The reason why is that this wasn't the "we're sorry to..." kind of PR stuff you usually here. This one sounded well written and thought out.
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