Brian Burke plans for the future

[Kovy27]

and he doesn't believe in the Pittsburgh model:

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck- ... 18456.html

"What's the Pittsburgh model?"
Brian Burke snapped that question back to the media during a postseason press conference on Tuesday, examining the carcass of the 2011-12 Toronto Maple Leafs' season.
The initial question had been about preaching patience to the fan base and a form of long-term rebuilding that's been foreign to the Leafs: Collecting high draft choices through years of unsuccessful hockey, only to have a franchise resurrected as a Stanley Cup contender.
"They got a lottery. They won a god damn lottery and they got the best player in the game. Is that available to me? Should we do that? Should we ask the League to have a lottery this year, and maybe we pick first?" he said.
"The Pittsburgh model? My ass."
Burke continued: "They got the best player in the game in a lottery. Ray Shero's done a good job. He's an excellent GM and he's a friend of mine. But I love when people talk about the Pittsburgh model. The simple fact is that they got the best player … we came in second that year in Anaheim. We got Bobby Ryan. Impact player, good player. They got Sidney Crosby in the lottery."
(Anyone want to wager what percentage of Burke's ire here is based on the premise that he'd still be living in California if the Ducks had landed Sidney Crosby?)

[itissteeltime]

haha, love it.

[Fast B]

He's right about Crosby, but of course they also traded up to get Fleury and drafted Staal, Letang, Orpik, and Malkin (which in fairness was a no-brainer). Burke....traded for Kessel? Maybe Burke should go back to finding the right amount of truculence for his sorry, no-account bunch of losers.

[SolidSnake]

Jelly

[shafnutz05]

Make no mistake, the Penguins benefited from sucking for a long time. But they also acquired complementary players that were crucial to the Cup run.

[Troy Loney]

Make no mistake, the Penguins benefited from sucking for a long time. But they also acquired complementary players that were crucial to the Cup run.

The penguins had Whitney, Fleury, Malkin, Crosby and Staal for high draft picks. And that was only sucking for 4 years because they lucked out on the crosby lottery. Toronto, Edmonton, Colorado, Atlanta, Florida, Columbus, St Louis and Chicago have all had a ton of high picks, yet only chicago has put it together like the pens have.

[Malkamaniac]

Most of those high draft picks on other teams have been traded to for mostly failures.

[DudeMan2766]

Crosby to me is the only player that you can say was luck. Yeah, Malkin was a no brainer but they lost out on the lottery and it really wasn't their decision. Staal wasn't exactly a can't miss prospect and if memory serves, Shero passed on Kessel for him. The team recognized how good Fleury was and made the moves in order to get him. Letang was a 3rd round pick. Not to mention tradiing a scrap heap for Hossa, while still getting a valuable throw in. Same with the Neal deal (minus the scrap heap remark) Add in free agents like Cooke who have came up huge and a waiver wire pick up in Adams, who prob wouldnt be in hockey if Shero didnt pull the trigger and I think Adams was a gigantic part of that Cup. 4th liner or not. Winning the Crosby lottery was a lot of luck, but if Burke had Crosby on the team he'd still be in the mess he's in. This has way way way more to do with having a GM that actually knows what the hell he's doing than just getting Crosby.

[redwill]

There's no reasoning with people like Burke and so many others. Why even bother?

[penmyst]

When a team stinks, like the Leafs, and they are getting high draft picks----- why does anybody listen to them whine if they can't assemble a competent team from them?

That IS the whole point of letting the bad teams pick first, right? Even if you don't luck out to draw the number 1 pick (thank you lottery, for preventing teams from intentionally tanking to get the worst record and first pick)...... you are still drafting pretty dam high. And in the Leafs case, year-in and year-out.

So the Pens got Crosby. There have been plenty of other great players drafted after the Leafs picked, I am sure. Whose fault is that?

Getting great draft picks yearly, and doing nothing with them is how a team puts together decades of losing hockey. I suppose if I was part of a debacle like that, I'd be pretty sensitive about it too.

[npv708]

I know you can pretty much do this with any GM, but some interesting tidbits from Burke's draft history:

- Nazem Kadri, 1st rd, 7th overall - Still on the board (Chris Kreider, Marcus Johannson, Simon Despres)
- No 1st rd and 2nd rd draft pick in 2010, and a first in 2011 (Seguin, Hamilton, Jared Knight)

[Fire0nice228]

Staal wasn't exactly a can't miss prospect and if memory serves, Shero passed on Kessel for him.

Screw Kessel, we took Staal over Toews and Backstrom (WSH), for better or worse.