SB Nation User Blog: mf37

The Dissenting View: It's too late to turn back, here we go...

mf37 — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:37:13 -0000

Editor's Note: Since it looks like this Burke thing is as good as done why not take a look at where each side stands. For the dissent I present MF37 of Bitter Leaf Fan fame who will outline exactly why the Brian Burke hiring should not be a slam dunk.

Before we begin, I want to hitch up my grandpa pants, get my favourite cane and take up a seat on the front porch so I can yell at you kids.

The Leafs are hiring a new GM to help get them out of the desert and away from a plague of meddling owners. It’s a decision that needs to be entirely separate from and outside of the fact that someone needs to smite the likes of Strachan, Simmons, Cox, Berger or Kypreos (and feel free to sub-in your own favourite media target here - it's pretty much an endless list).

If hiring a GM was all about f*cking with the media, I’d be blogging about the little known hockey skills of Dick Cheney, Larry Flynt or John "Damien Cox is going to get his tits caught in a wringer" Mitchell (ok, he’s dead, but he would have been great).

But the Leafs's next hire has to be bigger than that.

It has to be about building a champion, ending a drought, transforming a culture and the restoration of hope,

The media are like flies at a murder scene - they aren't, and should never be, the focus.

Now get off my lawn.

[muttering]kids today with the hair and the music and the piercings…[/muttering]

Facts are to the mind what food is to the body - the other Burke (Edmund)

The limited success that the Leafs, and by extension we fans, have enjoyed has unarguably happened when two conditions were met:

1. A professional, veteran hockey executive was at the helm;
2. Ownership interference was minimal.

Consider this: Jim Gregory made the Leafs a pretty competitive club from 1973 to 78, bringing in some of this franchise’s most famous faces: Salming, Sittler, MacDonald, Palmateer. The Leafs had a sparkling resurgence under the stewardship of Cliff Fletcher nearly 20 years ago, resulting in Gilmour and Sundin in the Blue and White, and then there were remarkable runs with Pat Quinn not so long ago.

What do these eras have in common? They brought fans hope, restored respectability to an oft-tarnished fracnhise and they all collapsed spectacularly when ownership got too involved or brought in weak executives.

Which leads us to Brian Burke, who, according to the media, will be the next GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs. It's no longer a matter of if, it's only a matter of when.

Burke certainly satisfies these two criteria: he has an admittedly impressive hockey resume and a reputation as someone who would never stand for, nor suffer, any interference from the likes of Peddie and Tannenbaum (although it should be noted that Peddie has stated explicitly and frequently that he will step down as President of the Leafs as part of this hiring process, so it won't be just Burke who gets the so-called Colangelo deal, it will be standard operating procedure for all the prospective candidates).

But what else does Burke bring to the table?

This ain't Anaheim

As many strides as Fletcher and Wilson have made (and really, how hard would it be to look better than the fiasco that was JFJ?) the 2008-09 Toronto Maple Leafs are not Bryan Murray’s Anaheim Ducks.

Burke is not walking into a team that’s a tweak or two away from contention and just a few years removed from a Stanley Cup run. This Leafs squad is not loaded with young talent like Getzlaf, Perry and Penner. Toskala is no Gigeure and, as far as I know, no current Leafs have a brother like Scott Nidermayer who’s a UFA and just dying to sign with the Blue and White, nor is a player like Selanne is not standing by waiting to give an (adopted) home-town discount.

Unlike the situation he inherited in Anaheim, Burke is going to have to do some heavy lifting to get the Leafs on track. In order to do so, he’s going to have to succeed at the draft, manage the cap and get a little lucky. He's one for three on that count in Anaheim and, to my mind, that's not good enough to be the next GM of the Leafs.

Burke's Draft History

1999
Brian Burke pulled off a great draft day deal that landed the Canucks the Sedin twins. The rest of the draft can be filed under "name that ECHL player"

2000
Burke had seven picks, they've combined for a total of 6 NHL games played with zero points.

2001
Burke used his first round draft pick to land R. J. Umberger who was traded before he ever laced them up for the Canucks for 13 games of Martin Rucinsky. Burke also drafted Kevin Bieksa, who was looking all sorts of good before getting injured last year. The rest of his picks have played a combined total of 67 NHL games

2002
Burke traded the Canucks’ first round pick (Alexander Semin) to the Washington Capitals for Trevor Linden. A move that makes him the perfect man to run the Leafs, I can picture the 2015 Mclean's article now. Hockey’s Future sums up Burke's 2002 draft day performance best:

With one NHL appearance between the 11 former prospects, the Canucks take home the 2002 Futile Draft Award with an appalling average of just 0.09 games per prospect. And if you want to look at it closer, the only selection to appear in any NHL uniform was goaltender Rob McVicar whose NHL experienced totals less than three minutes from a brief appearance during the 2005-06 season against Edmonton. This equals approximately 15 seconds of NHL ice time per pick.

2003
The last draft for Burke in Vancouver, he grabbed Ryan Kesler at the 23rd spot with their first pick. Not a bad pick-up (Mike Richards went 24th and Corey Perry went 28th). The rest of the players Burke drafted have played a combined 23 NHL games.

As for his drafting history with the Ducks, it’s way too early to tell what sort of talent Burke has been able to compile. But his prize draft pick, Bobby Ryan (drafted one spot behind Sidney Crosby) has yet to make the NHL, most likely because Burke doesn’t have the cap space for him.

Which leads me to the other half of building a solid contender in a hard cap environment: salary cap management.

Salary Cap Management

As we’ve seen across the NHL, it’s not spending to the cap that matters - it’s the price to quality ratio that counts. As MC79 has pointed out, the NHL has really become an efficiency contest. Successful teams have a core of young developing players that can contribute to the team’s success without depleting the budget. UFA signings should only be utilized to fill-in the gaps or to put a team over the top. $4MM for 15 goal scorers never seems to be a good thing.

In Anaheim, Burke has stumbled with the cap, losing Dustin Penner, signing Todd Bertuzzi to a head-scratching 2 year deal at $4 Million per and then buying him out 10 month later, and signing Schneider to a whopping $5+M deal only to ship him off for spare parts when cap space ran out.

Desperate for cap space, he also waived Ilya Bryzgalov (think about this: Wade Belak was worth more) and dealt Andy McDonald (who provided much needed second line scoring, disciplined play and 14 points in 21 playoff games during the Ducks’ run to the Cup) to St. Louis for Doug Weight, who was a healthy scratch in the playoffs. MacDonald outscored Weight in the regular season 2:1.

Clearly, cap management has not been Burke’s strong suit to the point that the franchise's top prospect remains in the AHL awaiting Anaheim to clear the salary space so he can play with the big club.

Meaningless Stat That Doesn't Quite Fit into this Post but I'm Cramming it in Anyway

While Burke headed up the Canucks and some combination involving Pat Quinn ran the Leafs, the two clubs put up the following records:
Canucks 1999 to 2004: .538%, 4 for 6 post-season appearances, won 1 playoff series
Leafs 1999 to 2004: .597%; 6 for 6 post-season appearances, won 7 playoff series

Options

This may seem like a curveball coming 1,500 words into a badly-in-need-of-an-edit piece but I’m not completely opposed to Burke.

Yes, he mangled the cap in Anaheim, soiled the linens on draft day, and won all of a single round of playoff hockey as GM of the Canucks; but, the man has won a cup, is passionate about the game and isn’t afraid to roll the dice, make a gutsy move or correct a mistake. I just think when you really examine Burke's record there are better options out there.

David Poile and Darcy Regier both have contracts that are expiring at the conclusion of this season. Poile's Predators have never found post-season success but he's managed to build and maintain a strongly competitive club using little more than old water bottles and sock tape. Regier is unparalleled in terms of drafting and developing talent and taking new approaches to scouting. It would be fascinating to see what these men could do with MLSE's resources.

Doug Wilson’s contract status seems to be a bit of a mystery but he told the Globe and Mail this past June that he can listen to offers from other clubs in the summer of 2009. His Sharks haven't been able to get over that final hump but he's pulled off the big deals, drafted well and managed the Sharks cap pretty nicely.

After looking at Burke’s long record and considering the importance that drafting and development will have if the Leafs are to ever field an elite squad that can challenge for the cup, I’d rather the Leafs wait six more months to see if they can land one of Poile, Regier or Wilson.

If the Leafs miss out Burke as a result, so be it. I’m sure there are plenty of GMs looking for work that have enough talent to yell at the local media types and chronically strike out at the draft table.

Two Tracks

mf37 — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:57:11 -0000

We are just over a day away from the beginning of the season so it's time to make predictions for the upcoming season. Throughout the day we'll have a number of previews and now stepping up to the plate is the Barilkosphere's elder statesman and designated cool head MF37 from Bitter Leaf Fan.

No predictions and low expectations. That pretty much sums up my take on the upcoming Leaf season.

This is a year where, with the exception of Nikolai Kulemin and Ron Wilson, the most intriguing story lines will occur away from the ice at the ACC: the development of Schenn and Pogge; the backroom deals struck to bring in more picks and prospects; the on-going (never ending) search for a President and GM; the build-up to the trade deadline; prepping for the 2009 draft; the ongoing efforts to untie JFJ's Gordian knot; and hopefully avoiding the thin (thin!) 2009 UFA pool.

In place of a guess at a win loss record or what odds the Leafs might have of making the post-season, I offer this instead...

What We Can Learn from Cliff Fletcher

The first thing most people remember about Cliff Fletcher’s original tenure with the Leafs: blockbuster trades.

This is the GM that brought the Leafs Doug Gilmour and Mats Sundin; two trades that, in an ideal world, would buy this GM all sorts of latitude from the media, stakeholders and the fans.

This being Toronto, his legendary work is often brought into question by two simple words: "draft schmaft" (proving the lasting value of mnemonics).

The next thing fans are likely to recall is Fletcher dismantling the team. As then-owner Steve Stavros’ grocery empire came crumbling down it necessitated a series of salary dumps and resulted in one of the more recent dark periods of Leaf history (who was a worse coach, Mike Murphy or Paul Maurice? Discuss).

Between the big trades and the eventual decline of this club, Fletcher demonstrated not just a keen understanding of how to build a team, but how to evaluate one.

Fletcher is the first GM I can recall who looked at his team in ten game increments and openly talked to the media about using ten game trends to identify strengths, weaknesses and patterns in his team's play. (This could very well be more a function of having a string of horrible front office staff in Toronto than it was Fletcher bringing something new to the game, the fans and the media. For all I know, Cecil Hart and the Habs were doing this with The Gazette and La Presse back in Chelios' rookie season in 1937).

Breaking the Pain Down into Ten Game Segments

Fletcher's approach back in the day is something we fans could learn from and need to apply to the coming season.

This year the focus should be on player development and team trends over ten to 20 game increments, not on who blew coverage on the PK, which player kicked a sock in anger and how to best quantify the greed of MLSE and the alleged concomitant stupidity of Leaf fans.

Looking at how the Leafs have performed since the lock-out, we fans can do ten games in our sleep. It's also a safe way to approach a year that is likely to set some sort of record for media hysterics.

Mittenstringers, Mouth Breathers and One-Fingered Typists

Despite being covered by one of the largest media corps in Canada, one certainty for the coming season is that we fans will be fed a steady diet of little more than who won, who scored, and who's to blame. The nutritional equivalent of a cheeseburger-in-a-can, quick, easy, and entirely beside the point.

Look for the mittenstringers to second guess every Leaf transaction and to contradict themselves over what's "best" for the team and the players while neglecting to notice that the bulk of the roster is made up of players for the times rather than players for all time. Let's face it, many of these skaters won’t even be wearing the beautiful blue and white leaf on their chest come March.

Considering the transitional nature of the roster, instead of running these players out of town or setting up effigies, I suggest that the Barilkosphere lead the way in looking at the bigger picture.

How much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.

In public polling (or "research" as those in the trade like to call it, don’t know when it happened but it seems pollster has become a bad word) one of the most fundamental questions one can ask it the "right track/wrong track" question. And it’s a question we should likely be asking every ten games leading up to the trade deadline. Is this team on the right track or the wrong track? Are management’s player personnel decisions on the right track or the wrong track? Are Wilson's systems on the right track or wrong track? Is Pogge's development on the right track (65 starts) or the wrong track (benched for Clemmensen in the playoffs)? Are the Leafs acquiring picks and prospects (right track) or dealing second round picks for 15 games of Yanic Perreault (wrong track)?

Let's face it, it really doesn’t matter if the Leafs win 14 or 40 games this year. What matters is how management reacts to the results in the wins and losses column. Building a team that can eventually take a serious run at and challenge for the Cup has to be, must be, at the root of every decision management makes.

Right track or wrong track?

A simple question to keep top of mind for the upcoming season.

A simple question that will hopefully distract us from countless third period melt-downs, rookie errors, and a media contingent that takes obscene delight in the failures of the Leafs and questioning the loyalty of Leaf fans.

Schneider?

mf37 — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:24:05 -0000

So I'm surfing past the NHL on Yahoo en route to Puck Daddy and the faint blue text at the bottom of the screen catches my eye. I nearly have a heart attack.

Look for yourself, no not the Ross McKeon piece re. the Devils relying on Brodeur (there's some breakthrough journalism right there ladies and gentlemen). Down by the badly drawn red arrow...

Schneider, invited to the Leafs training camp? Holy cow...then about 90 seconds later it hits me: the more prominent Schneider, the one that's been in the news lately, well his first name starts with "M"

TGiFTB Edition

mf37 — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 23:37:19 -0000

Welcome to the Friday edition of Pension Plan Puppets. PPP is on day 112 of his vacation and rather than coming up with recycled content for my bitter leaf blog, I'm doing guest hosting duties over here.

The good news is: not only is it casual day here at the puppet theatre, we're also moving to summer hours. That's right, less time in mum's basement more time in our friends' basements.

The biggest (non) story of the week...

...has to be Frogren's contract situation.

Ninja offered his take;
Steve at Hockey Analysis stepped up here; and
The Puck Stops Here weighed in on competing CBA language

On Thursday night I was chatting with a sports reporter who said the NHL is stalling on approving the Frogren deal while they try to negotiate a new transfer agreement. Apparently, the League isn't too happy that the Leafs have done their own thing, possibly seting a precedent for player transfer payments that are higher than the NHL would like. FWIW, he also said Frogren will be a Leaf by September and this has more to do with a slow news day than any legitimate legal concerns.

In the interim, the world waits for Glen Healy to "bring out the heavy artillery" to make sure that the League "does not destroy Frogren's career." (And I wait for Healy to come down with a chronic case of laryngitis).

In the rest of the week that was

We tried to poke fun at the Sens
Moose and I debated brass
Stajan re-signed

Today's new lemon fresh content from the blogosphere

If anyone questions the Finger contract, Leafs Nation can just point to the horizon, yell "Hey is that Federov over there?!?" and then make a break for it.
Could this be a secret Tampa Bay scouting report on Brandon Bochenski?
Psuedonym does some math on the Leafs roster - are they Leafs really getting younger?
There's a new-ish Leaf blog called the Ballad of Wendel Clark (or at least it's new to me). Go check it out...and if folks are aware of other Leaf blogs that we're not adequately posting/ checking/ plagirizing/ mocking please hit us up in the comments section.
JFJ and Mike Gillis would both give this guy a huge contract with an NMC and wouldn't be troubled by his rather odd chest hair.
Sean at Down Goes Brown points out a Bruce Garrioch pun about Emery's decision to play in Russia.
Interesting thought about geographic divisional alignments (e.g. NHL) vs. a more dispersed approach (e.g. NFL) over at the Sports Economist. I've always loved the idea of the Leafs being in an Original Six division, but maybe that's because I'm old.
Chemmy read Brunt's book on Bobby Orr. I read it too and the only thing I remember is that in Orr's heyday peelers *ahem* groomed themselves to mimic how Orr taped his stick (come to think of it, taping my stick is a really great euphimism for another, uh, solo activity).
Speaking of Brunt, Toronto Sports Media Blog takes a well placed shot at some of Brunt's recent ramblings.
No hockey content, but a great correction in Newsday (hat tip to Deadspin)
Late yesterday, I put up a post over at my Bitter Leaf blog about the sorry state of music at Leaf home games. Down Goes Brown responded with a great comment about how games used to be at MLG. Other than icing a competent team and slashing beer prices, I'd love to know how Leaf fans would change the in-game experience down at the ACC.
**update** Greener at He Score, He Shoot! has posted his thoughts on Emery signing in Russia

And now for the comments...

When You Change With Every New Day

mf37 — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:14:39 -0000

Happy Tuesday everyone.

Once again, I'm your guest host from the little blog that could Bitter Leaf Fan, posting on what seems like day 53 of PPP's vacation.

I was in the LCBO in Belleville on Saturday (had to stop for reinforcements before hitting my parents in Kingston) and was suprised to see that they're raffling off a never worn Andrew Raycroft jersey. (Ah, who's kidding who? It probably was game worn - there were no puck marks on it).

Surprisingly, there were a whole lot of ballots still available...Perhaps Navin can "win" the jersey and perform some sort of sacrificial ritual with it.

In other, somewhat related, Leafs news:

Sean at Down Goes Brown provides five solid pieces of advice to Bryan McCabe: one piece of advice for every McCabe own-goal last year
Moose and Greener go all Venus and Johnny Fever (or maybe Les and Herb)
David Johnson doesn't think the Leafs are bad enough to get into the Tavares sweepstakes (maybe he thnks McCabe will heed Sean's advice)
Steve looks at Stajan's new deal and hopes for more from Mr. Stajan
The Leafs have announced details for their prospect camp (Wellwood obviously was out picking up a party pack of timbits during the classes on nutrition, injury prevention and mental preparation)
The Reading Royals are rumoured to be the Leafs new ECHL affiliate. Due to a surprising contract from the Avalanche, dozens of children in developing nations will receive never-worn Reading Royals Andrew Raycroft jerseys (and possibly a Leafs' #1 jersey from a "lucky" Belleville resident)
The Lightning sign Mark Recchi to an incentive-rich one-year deal. Had the Leafs inked this deal, Canadian media types would have taken to the streets like rage infected monkeys, killing everything in their path (most likely a death inflicted via boredom, hackneyed reporting and outrageous rumours)
Wyshnyski looks at the horrible terrifying interesting entries in CBC's Hockey Night in Canada Theme Song Competition. I think anything resembling the NES Tecmo Superbowl theme circa 1991 would be the optimal choice.

Please use the comments to let me know what links, hot stories and compelling rumours I've missed. And please, don't forget to tip your waitress...

FTB - The Saturday Boy

mf37 — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 02:45:31 -0000

I can't believe when PPP asked me to help out with the guest hosting gig, I didn't think to remind him that I don't work Saturdays.

There's a mistake I'll never make again.

When I was a kid back in the 70s, Saturday Mornings were hands down the best time of the week. No guest blogging, no school, no plans, just a big bowl of honeycomb or apple jack cereal and loads of craptastic American kids programming from sun-up until noon(ish).

On Saturday mornings you didn't have to rely on Commander Tom (or some other the b-list talent) to host a kids show. It was just four or five hours of product-placement/latest toy tie-in really lame cartoons.

Once the cartoons were over, the neighbourhood kids would gather to play pong or the Atari 2600 Kombat game.

It may have been a simpler time. There weren't hundreds of digital channels offering targeted programming to kids, tweens, teens and everyone else, but at least the Leafs still pretty much sucked (I kid, I kid. They had some rocking teams back then with Sittler, MacDonald, Palmateer, Salming...and then it all went horribly wrong).

FTB/MSM update:

Jared pens an open letter to Bryan McCabe
It's official, the Leafs mystery D-man is Jonas Frogren
The Leafs have renewed RFA Mikhail Grabovski's contract - no word on whether the contract specifies if his last name ends in an "i" or "y"
Nieuwendyk should be on the Leafs staff by next week (see last para)
Kevin Lowe claims he's all rubber and Burke is glue, Leafs Nation to begin waivering over Burke's credentials in three minutes or less...

And since I got stuck working this weekend, here's your assignment Leaf fans:

Could Grabovski's acquisition be a key to the Leafs' future shoot-out success?

I did my darndest to turn up AHL shoot-out stats, but came up blank.

I did find plenty of headlines that suggested Grabovski's had a lot of success with the shoot-out and Lord knows it's a part of the game the Leafs desperately need to improve on...

If anyone can turn up the stats or wants to take a shot at compiling them from game records, please post your findings in the comments here or pop on over to my blog at bitter leaf and send an e-mail/comment to me.

Thanks and have a wonderful weekend...I'm heading off to the land before time (my parents' house) where internet is but a rumour, so I won't be able to update missed links, typos, broken links, breaking news. Hopefully it will be a quiet weekend on all fronts.

The Day After (I will not tell a pun FTB edition)

mf37 — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:51:15 -0000

Good morning Leaf fans, some of you may know me from my blog bitter leaf fan, and some of you may know me for my legendary community work. I'm going to be your host here at PPP this morning.

I've just come back from two weeks traveling the west coast from Seattle to Tofino. Usually I return from my annual vacation refreshed, full of new insights, and ready to take on the world. But not this year.

I have no idea why, but I've come back from holidays feeling soft and out of game shape. To put things in a larger context - as I sit here typing this I'm actually contemplating ordering the shamwow.

That thing looks ridiculously good. And it's German...

My new found love for super-absorbent shammies aside, here's a quick look at the White Noise in Leafs Nation:

Steve at Hockey Analysis provides some nice insight into the trio of UFAs signed by the Leafs
Raking Leafs (welcome back Ninja!) puts up a post speculating on Sundin's future
Down Goes Brown is not down with the Finger contract
Over at Sports and the City, Navin posts his UFA wish list
Former Little Lebowski Urban Achiever MF37 (hey, I know that guy!) offers his thoughts on the Leafs UFA signings (and unlike your other co-hosts here, likes what the Leafs have done).
Cliff Fletcher tells Bill Watters that Bryan McCabe is not in the Leafs' plans for next year (and Watters responds with a powerful, insightful monosyllable: "Oh.")
Working Class Howard chats with the Silver Fox and finds out the Leafs will be signing a D-man from Europe who hasn't played in the NHL yet and acquiring a centre via free-agency or trade. Anyone have any guesses as to who this might be?
Adrian Dater of the Denver Post thinks the Jeff Finger signing is so crazy that it merits the rarely used "crazy-crazy" tag. Speaking of crazy, I'd like Dater to explain how a guy logs an average of 20 minutes a night gets "gassed" 20 seconds into a shift (other than by playing 60 shifts a game...)
In the "write-your-own-punch line" category the Avalanche have signed Andrew "exploding glove" Raycroft to a one-year deal. I can only conclude they can't get Centre Ice TV, the Internet, radio or newspapers in Denver.
Avalanche blog In the Cheap Seats gets input from Down Goes Brown on the Raycroft deal and DGB was very diplomatic.
The Avalanche also signed Darcy Tucker to a two-year deal. No word yet on how feistiness, heart and agitation compare to god-awful GA60 and a declining ability to play at ES and PP.
**UPDATE** Die Hard Blue and White puts the Finger deal into context by looking at some other zany UFA signings (and compares the Raycroft deal to rancid Salmon. I think he's being too kind as that Salmon was once a palatable option)