Well paws, you know I hate Burkey and this will sound like I am defending him but.
I have to wonder if he was just spouting and acting in accordance with the then owners (teachers pension fund) wishes.
Lets review what we know.
We now know the teachers had mlse on the blocks , it would be a safe assumption that a better leafs , a PO rev leafs, might bump the sale price.
It's not hard to imaging that in BBs hiring interviews there would be discussion on team direction and building philosophy.
Obviously BB and TPF found common ground there.
Now did BB give in to TPFs demand of expedience or did BB feel this way from the get go?
The only one I believe did at 100% was the TPF.
but Burke was also given 100 percent control, that was the #1 reason why a lot of people didn't want the job remember? Because they had to report to the board and make plans and get the okay. Burke was the first GM for a while that didn't have to do that.
Fletcher while here hurt the development of the club with the trades that he did. Burke only piled on to that by trading for Kessel. he didn't have to, but regardless of what people said - Burke said countless times that he stood behind that trade, would do it over and over and over again, and that he didn't believe in building through the draft, he wanted to retool.
and here we are.
get mad at Nonis all you want, but I honestly believe he's actually rebuilding (I'll get mad at him sooner or later). I think that a lot of "perfect storm of suckitude" happened to this team, but there's "fighting for a wildcard spot" and just not being able to handle the presure. good goaltending saved our butt - and I wouldn't touch our goaltending with a 10 foot pole. he has some of the support for the rookies in place so while we can compete, "falls" like this shouldn't be surprising either. that's the way I'm choosing to look at it.
So we fall down this year (draft high).
we fall down next year (draft high)
also UFA well, and see where we go.