The Canadiens are slated to open the NHL season on Saturday, Jan. 19 at the Bell Centre against the Toronto Maple Leafs, who will have a new general manager after Brian Burke was officially fired during a 1:45 p.m. press conference Wednesday at the Air Canada Centre.
During the press conference, Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment president Tom Anselmi announced that Dave Nonis will take over as the 14th general manager of the Leafs and that Burke, who had also been team president, will remain with the club as a senior adviser. Nonis had been the Leafs’ senior vice-president of hockey operations.
Burke was GM of the Leafs for just over four years, during which time the team never made the playoffs. The Leafs finished in 13th place in the Eastern Conference last season, when Burke fired Ron Wilson as coach and hired Randy Carlyle to replace him.
Read more by clicking here.
Postmedia News national columnist Cam Cole says that the Leafs’ next move should be getting goalie Roberto Luongo from the Canucks. Read his column by clicking here.
Here are some of the Tweets that were posted by media members when the news first broke about an hour before the press conference:
Pierre LeBrun of TSN/ESPN from New York: “Close GMs friends of Burke’s arriving here for BOG in NYC had no clue. They’re stunned.”
TSN’s Darren Dreger: “Timing of Burke dismissal very odd. He and all brass were at Marlies game last night in Hamilton. Truth will surface. Something fishy.”
Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun: ”I could be wrong, but I don’t believe the Burke firing has anything to with Luongo. I believe there are other issues at play here.”
Ken Campbell of The Hockey News: “Biggest question. Overall, did Brian Burke leave the Leafs as an organization in worse shape than he got it? From this corner – absolutely.”
(Photo by Chris Young/The Canadian Press)
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Burke s m.o was to rebuild mostly thru trading.eg seguin for kessel, you cant trade away top future prospects for old vet buddys,thats old school,dinosaur hockey and he was about to do it again, hence the firing.
GO HABS GO
Wasn’t expecting that to happen before the season XD
New thread. Daves boy Cole
Watch Burke’s (Rats ASS) end up in the NHL Headquarters in a top job. Maybe BETTMAN’s down the road.
Yet another Leaf saviour bites the dust…
I guess Galchenyuk will only get a 6 game audition.
http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=413134
I thought he was playing the season with Montreal?
It seems they will have to decide whether or not to burn a year of his entry level contract after 6 games instead of the normal 9 due to the shortened season. I am assuming he makes the team out of training camp, which may not happen.
According to MacKenzie, they have to decide after 5, the 6th game is when it counts as a yr on entry level contract
“They don’t hang Conference Championship Banners from the rafters here”
Carey Price
That’s weird, then why not just say 5 game entry level tryout instead of calling it 6 games (or 9 in normal circumstances)
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Go Habs Go!
5 max then back to junior
Jim, thanks for the heads-up regarding Bettman’s public apology.
For anyone who hasn’t seen it, here it is.
He needs a hug.
Choke hold Timo, choke hold.
Dominique Moore is a Free agent
“Keep your stick on the Ice”
I seriously doubt he would be able to play hockey this year after what he just went through.
that might be the distraction he needs to heal
“Keep your stick on the Ice”
Sign him!
I don’t think he’s in the mood to go thru anything with his day job right now. The man just lost his wife. Condolences to him though…
That has an unfortunate double-meaning in his circumstances.
After forgetting about Bettman’s press conference it finally occurred to me why the Leafs would make that announcement at this time! The PR guys are geniuses …or we are all idiots…maybe a bit of both..but hey at least I know am an idiot who totally preffered to spend the day thoeorizing over Burke than being ticked at the NHL.
Why do the players need so long to ratify this deal? With electronic voting, couldn’t they get it done tonight? Let’s be honest, most of them won’t even read the MOU, it will just be “click” yes, then back to training camp and video games.
Internet connection from/to Alaska is very slow. It takes a couple of days to transmit Gomer’s vote.
“Rim shot”
Even a dog sled could get it done before Saturday.
Alot of ppl. here are excited (or NOT that enthusiastic!) about Brian Burke’s firing. Honestly, what I think should be fired is that Commissioner who just got off the press-con a moment ago saying “I AM SORRY” to all of us fans.
I am more interested to see Gary Bettman’s job in trouble than for a disgruntled GM like Brian Burke who never had his work cut out for him after 4 years in the Laffs.
Now with this Kovalchuck issue and other Russian players who seem to like the KHL, this last lockout caused more damage to the business and intl’ relations between Europe and North American Hockey markets.
BTW, is Markov already here in Montreal? If not and he’s embracing Mama Russia w/ Love due to KHL fever, well that’s gonna be an issue for MB as well!
aj, if there were any doubt about the influence Jeremy aka Jerry Jacobs had with Bettman,these negotiations and even this presser leaves no doubt.
I would hope that revenue suffers to a point where the more moderate owners kick him out in the streets.
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IMO, Bettman needs to resign of get fired! You’re right though, the less revenue, the higher the chances his day job could put a strain on him. Just watching him do the presser and answering questions w/ the media, he’s in a lot of pressure right now. He doesn’t even like answering the media nor do the press con at all just by his facial reaction.
I can’t say good luck with Bettman cuz’ I’m sure everybody doesn’t like him at this point. His luck really just ran out of him.
Stubbs tweeted yesterday that Markov is flying here on Thursday. He just became a Canadian citizen this year, too.
When Chan Gailey was dismissed as coach of the Buffalo Bills,he said he’d still be cheering for them.
I wonder if Burke will still be cheering for the Leafs?
Still scratching my head bud. No one, and I mean no one is crying that Marrone left.
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I am, he turned my once proud Cuse, into winners again. He will be missed.
Once I heard the news about Burke getting fired this came to mind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwCBYP9uJpM
Now that the owners have ratified the CBA can GM’s start talking to agents about signing players and are they allowed to talk to each other to make trades? Do they have to wait till players ratify?
Agents need the correct wording of the CBA to get deals done. They can have meetings Managers/Agents now but need the NHLPA signing of the new CBA before a formal contract can be done.
But what will Mike Komisarek ever do without “Burkie”
Collect the 4.5 million dollars plus still owed to him under his current contract and ride out into the sunset?
“There’s genius everywhere, but until they turn pro, it’s like popcorn in the pan. Some pop… some don’t.”
- Jerry Maguire
There is one Burke mistake that was totally unexpected, and I can understand how he missed it.
He didn’t take into consideration the brilliance of K’s then-partner, Makov.
Gainey made Komisarek a very similar offer, but Toronto’s was a bit bigger and won out. I wonder if Montreal dodged a bullet there?
–Go Habs Go!–
Jeremy Jacobs the spokesperson for the owners? Says it all.
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Say what? Where did you hear this? God forbid!
He represented the owners at the presser. Bettman called him Jerry. Sickening.
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What is Boston going to do now?
Have the Ottawa media run take down pieces on Bryan Murray until Eugene Melnyk decides to fire him with Burke waiting in the wings to take on the next Bruins rebuild.
That might have happened at one point last year…
Put Burke into a position that works beter in the NHL offices…don’t underestimate the power of the dark side.
Dang, Burke is gone! Rumour had it he was about to pull the trigger on a deal with the Habs, sending the Leafs first rounders from 2014 to 2018 here for Gomez.
They fired him because he didn’t want to throw in Komisarek.