Sleeksays

Washington Capitals (10-4-3, 4th in east) at Anaheim Ducks (10-7-2, t-4th in west) NHL's other poster child is in town. Welcome to the second installment of Brian Burke Week, as I ponder back on the Anaheim yester-legacy of the mouthy one. Yesterday I made a case for three moves that I think Burke gets too much flak for ; today it's time for Part II: Criticizing three Burke moves that I don't think get enough flak. A few things (1) I'm not going to include the Todd Bertuzzi signing; that one's so obviously bad that I don't know if it's worth discussing. Just know that my list has these three things plus signing Todd Bertuzzi. I'm still not passing judgment on Brendan Morrison, either (he gets a free pass for a while because two knowledgeable Canucks fans I talked to were shocked that B-Mo was even playing already) . (2) I am not saying that any of these moves are guaranteed to fail -- there's still judgment to be made on all of them. It's jus...

Hey, everybody! Welcome to Burke Week, where I'll take a scattered look back on what I take to be Brian Burke's legacy in Anaheim. I do have a lot to say about the guy, and rather than cram it all into one post I thought I'd break it into semi-coherent parts throughout the week. Part I: Defending three "bad" Burke moves that I don't think were that bad. For better or worse, opposing fans love to criticize Brian Burke's management style, and at times, the desire to call out Burke for a "bad" move ignores a lot of important context. Burke's first few years, of course, are now left alone because the Ducks won a cup, but since then it seems that critics are all-too-ready to point out where Burke has made his supposed mistakes. There's really two things to keep in mind when discussing some of these debatable moves, though: (1) Thanks to salary cap mechanics, it's always going to be difficult, if not impossible, to keep a championship team...

Los Angeles Kings (7-7-2, t-11th in west) at Anaheim Ducks (9-7-2, 5th in west) That strange silence you're hearing is a quiet general manager. Over the next week, I will be writing a series of posts looking back on the legacy of Brian Burke in Anaheim -- moves I liked, moves I didn't like, plus some general observations -- so yeah, look forward to that. For now, though, all I'll say is that I'm fine with the timing of the move, as there's not a lot of GMing that can really be done with the rest this year's roster. The Ducks are so close to the cap ceiling that there's not much to do except (a) promote Bobby Ryan and (b) re-sign some key players before next summer. We'll get to (a) in a second, but really the re-signing aspect is the key one: once Burke turned down a contract extension, next year's roster became Bob Murray's concern, and better to put that person in charge now than to wait until the offseason. Incidentally, I don't expect ...

Well, so much for that Bucket List. I certainly didn't see this coming this fast, and I don't have much time for reaction today, but here's the link . I'll have a proper good-bye for the guy at some point, but for now, welcome to the new Ducks' GM, Bob Murray. Sleek = Stunned. Go Ducks. [Update, 11:40 am. Per the Star's Damien Cox (link via KK ), Burke reportedly will stay on as a consultant with the Ducks until the end of this season. More to come after the press conference.] [Update, 1:10 pm. James Mirtle has some quotes from the press conference , but generally it wasn't very enlightening at all. I expect Burke's next press conference, whenever it comes, to reveal a lot more of what his future holds.] [Update, 2:40 pm. Nobody can keep up with Puck Daddy. A nice piece looking at the Anaheim tenure of Burke , plus some looking ahead to what he might face in Toronto. [Update, 2:50 pm. Probably my last update today, but the OC Register has many more Burke...