Quote:
Originally Posted by DeToxRox
Yzerman is going to get a job somewhere. Hull isn't doing bad in Dallas and Yzerman has much more pedigree then he does with the World Championships and now the Olympics. You can do a lot worse.
Kudos to Burke for getting Pronger, but it isn't as if he's been an amazing GM outside of that one year. He had talent in Vancouver and they underachieved and Anaheim has been underacheiving since winning the Cup.
He is good, but people make Burke out to be a God for some reason, and I just don't get it.
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Look, I'm not in the category of extending godlike status to Burke. I have criticized plenty of his moves, such as the Bryzgalov giveaway last year and for allowing the Penner situation to get to the point where we lost him to Edmonton.
But I'm not sure how you can think he hasn't done much unless you flat just don't like the guy, and especially if you're going to say Stevie Y with no experience is a better choice than he is. First of all, it's been A year-a season and the first month of this season--since the Ducks won the Cup. Just one. And it was a season torpedoed by the Niedermayer and Selanne situations. Everyone knows that. It forced Burke to make moves with Bertuzzi and Schneider that cost the team all the way to this month and even still now. One amazing year? You know the Ducks went to WCF in 2005, too, right, before getting Pronger? Where were your Wings? Yeah, at home.
Burke competed with many other offers on Pronger--Lowe himself, who says nothing nice about Burke, has stated that--so Pronger didn't fall into his lap. Lupul was the Ducks' best young talent at the time, and Smid their best young defenseman, and they gave away a few picks, too. Burke hired Carlyle. Burke signed Niedermayer and Selanne. He signed Jiggy to an extension when Jiggy could have walked for bigtime money back to Canada. Burke engineered a terrific draft last June that I think the organization is going to reaping the benefits from for years.
Burke also put a very strong team on the ice in Vancouver, and he;s not responsible for them underachieving (which, actually, they didn't; they were never as good as Colorado or Dallas or Detroit, so of course finished behind them often enough). Do you think Vancouver would have gotten anywhere without the Sedin twins? Who engineered that deal? Burke.
Burke has certainly made questionable moves--all GMs do--and on top of that he's an arrogant and chippy sonofaB.
But what you're saying makes me seriously consider whether I am going to even be putting much weight in what you say about hockey matters going forward. It's just that off. Let's have this convo when Yzerman has had a GM job and been at it for a while. Until then, gimme a break on Yzerman over Burke.
Come on, dude, it's Yzerman, and you're a Wings fan. You don't see the problem there?