Sleeksays

Colorado Avalanche (9-10-0, t-12th in west) at Anaheim Ducks (11-8-3, t-4th in west) Ah, we finally arrive at the conclusary installment of Burke Week, a five-day gander back at the Anaheim legacy of Brian Burke. Part I: Defending three "bad" Burke moves that I don't think were that bad. Part II : Criticizing three Burke moves that I don't think get enough flak. Part III : Nothing but shout-outs. Part IV : What I like about Burke the roster-builder. And now we arrive at Part V: Scattered final thoughts , where I squeeze everything I've missed into a final post for the series. We'll start with some counterpoint: Two things that I didn't like about Burke the roster-builder. Regret One: Europe, Where Art Thou? Since Brian Burke's second year in Anaheim, there has been a fairly rigid three-player maximum on players from Europe -- Teemu Selanne from Finland, Sammy Pahlsson from Sweden, and the back-up goalie (first Ilya Bryzgalov from Russia, now Jona...

Anaheim Ducks (10-8-2, 7th in west) at St. Louis Blues (6-8-2, 15th in west) Ducks had better have a better start or somebody's going to the dentist! So for Part IV of this series, I thought I'd take a look at some of the ways that Burke was a very good general manager -- things that worked for the Ducks not only on their Cup run but also looking forward. Think of these as a bit of a primer for good ol' Bob Murray, or more accurately, Part IV: What I like about Burke the roster-builder . Lesson One: If you want depth, don't acquire depth players; instead insert talent at the top of your roster. While I've stated before that I�m not overly impressed that Burke had the "wisdom" to acquire Niedermayer, Selanne, or Pronger, I don�t want to take away from the fact that Burke knew what he was going after � a superstar. His focus wasn�t on filling in his roster with supplementary depth players, though he certainly put those pieces in place as well; he was loo...

Time to take a break from my normally scheduled Burke Week -- tomorrow I'll get to the positive GM lessons we can learn from the Burke. Today instead I'm just going to toss a few links and call it a day (partially because I feel bad just tossing these at the end of a long post; mostly because I'm lazy) . First off, in keeping with Burke-themed tradition, I was a guest again on The Rink Podcast this week to talk about what the Burke departure means for Anaheim. I'm the first of three guests in a virtual All-Star Game of blog guests -- Steve Lepore of Puck the Media also talks about Versus ratings, and Alanah McGinley of Canucks and Beyond talks about Roberto Luongo's shutout streak. Not my strongest work, but then again, podcasting ain't my forte. Secondly, I wanted to give an update on the guy sometimes known as Kyle J and sometimes known as "the Swede" -- our mysterious comic book contributor here at BoC ( Episode 1: Toronto , Episode II: Detroit )...

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...

I've been an independent observer of this whole Dustin Penner fiasco , and like M*A*S*H* or a penis, it just gets better the longer it goes. To recap: The Oilers sign Dustin Penner to a 5-year, $21.25 million dollar deal after his astounding 43-point season playing alongside 2 scrubs named Ryan Getzly and Chris Perry or something like that. Who cares, they've never done anything anyway. There was much gnashing of the teeth from bloviating jackass Brian Burke, who criticized Lowe for ruining both teams; this was followed by a lot of back-and-forth between the outmatched Anaheim blogging contingent and the Edmonton juggernaut. But, in the end, Brian Burke was right: the Dustin Penner offer sheet not only left Edmonton with an overpaid, unmotivated baby, but also screwed the Ducks over when they had an opportunity to win a 2nd cup. To that I say, "Huzzah!" The problem with the Edmonton offer sheet from their perspective was that they were not in the position to of...

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...

Florida Panthers (4-8-1, 15th in east) at Anaheim Ducks (9-6-1, 3rd in west) The truth about cats and birds. I don't have anything to say about tonight's matchup against the Cats, but I do want to recommend The Litter Box , a Panthers-themed hockey blog that I enjoy thoroughly. Whale4Ever mixes his hockey updates with plenty of awesome images and plenty of snark, and I'm much more pro-Cat thanks to his efforts. Rock on, dude. Instead, I wanted to ride the coattails of the campaign fever that's been taking over BoC, between Mike Chen's push for Seto/Gooch to the All-Star Game and Rudy Kelly's Doughty for the Calder Trophy movement that's just picking up steam. Well, just because I'm apolitical and anti-voting doesn't mean that I don't care about important issues, and there's certainly one movement I'd like to throw my negligible weight behind. As a bonus, it's not even anything I have to convince you readers to do�the primary aud...

Anaheim Ducks (1-5-0, 15th in west) at Toronto Maple Leafs (1-2-2, t-11th in east) When's the last time you looked longingly at Toronto's record? (I wasn't asking you, Kings fans.) Yeah, sometimes I'm lazy enough for a good google image search, so sue me (note to Disney: please don't sue me) . Not too much from me today, as I didn't even get to watch the Carolina outing, but I did want to revisit a post I wrote way back in June that explored the notion of Brian Burke taking a Maple Leafs GM job next summer . I really made two points: (1) Brian Burke has gotten lucky at times, in particular with his acquisitions of Niedermayer, Pronger, and Selanne, and (2) I was fine with Burke leaving, as there is a fairly open roster next year for a replacement GM to work with. Of course, that latter point isn't looking so strong these days, as the three biggest contracts Burke has locked the Ducks into are: R. Getzlaf, 6 gp, 0-1-1, -5 � 5 years, $26.625 million C. Perr...

Edmonton Oilers (1-0-0) at Anaheim Ducks (3 opportunities for improvement!) There's no choice except better results, right? What I was originally going to write about. Look, I know the Ducks have been horrible lately, but I've caught onto a pattern. For game one, I wrote about how scared I was about Jonathan Goddamn Cheechoo , and he killed us. For game two, I wrote nothing, and that didn't help. For game three, I wrote about a pattern of 1-goal deficits turning into 3-goal deficits , and the Ducks watched their deficit grow like clockwork. My problem? I'm way too psychic. And I've been focusing entirely too much on the negative. Tonight? In the spirit of "the first 3 games are irrelevant in the scheme of an 82-game schedule", I'm instead imagining some good results. Is this the game where the Ducks get goals from their actual goal-scorers * ? Is this the game where the Ducks enter the penalty box at a slightly lesser rate ** ? Is this the game wher...

Poor Bobby Ryan. The kid picked one slot behind Sidney Crosby hasn't had much opportunity to shine on an NHL stage. He played in his first 25 NHL games last year , including 2 in the Dallas series, and after a strong camp this season, was demoted yesterday to the AHL Chops mainly for salary cap reasons . This is a situation that it's a bit tough to write about, because there's several unknowns at work here: (a) Bobby Ryan's bonus clauses -- thanks to NHL secrecy, I have no idea what Ryan would need to do in order to earn his $1.1 M in bonuses, though I'd guess they pertain to NHL-level achievements. If Ryan started on the Ducks, though, the $1.1 M would count against the cap as potential achievements, and I can't say at what point these bonuses become unachievable. (b) Bobby Ryan's potential -- I've liked what I've seen out of the kid in limited exposure thus far, but Ryan's played most of his hockey completely off my radar. I assume the kid is...