Whether the Toronto Maple Leafs make or miss the playoffs this season, they will have defied statistics. By making the playoffs, they will be working against the percentages given by sports clubs statistics which now gives them a solid 11% of qualifying. By missing the playoffs, they will be among a small group that held a post-season position in the standings as long as they did and still failed to make it. No matter which way you look at it, things are not looking very positive in the near or long term.
The battle cry of the fans and media has and will continue to be that Ron Wilson needs to go. In fairness to their argument, he is the only constant in the last 4 seasons of failure. His ability to reign this club in and buckle down for important games down the stretch is a clear indictment on his capability of performing what should not be an overly difficult task. Nearly 3/5 of all teams in the NHL qualify for the postseason, more than half. This should not represent an unthinkable accomplishment, yet somehow in Toronto it does. Ron Wilson and Brian Burke blame the pressure of the media, the pressure of the fan base, the rotation of the sun, the lack of bounces, the scheduling process, the guy in the 7’th row at the ACC. Ron Wilson frequently snipes at players, never hesitating to place someone on the train tracks to absorb the brunt of the impact. Brian Burke will often blame himself, stating that he has not given the coach proper players. The trouble with this eternal blame game, there is not one consequence that either has had to face.
Firing Wilson may accomplish something, but to what end. Looking at this assembly of players 4 years after Burke took over, there is still no real sense of direction. It is difficult to determine whether or not they are actually better, worse, or unchanged. They are very different, but still no real sense of progression can be found. It is hard to criticize a relative amateur general manager in Garth Snow in his handling of the New York Islanders, and not level similar criticism at Brian Burke. After all, Snow does not have the resources at his disposal that Burke does, and his team while still floundering has pieces that the Maple Leafs organization would salivate over.
Brian Burke laid out a blueprint in November 2008 of how the team was going to be turned around. The first step was making the Air Canada Center a formidable place. This task is hard to measure, as it never truly has been all that scary of a building, even during its most recent playoff runs. The second step was curing the Leafs of “blue and white” disease as he coined it, a sense of entitlement for simply being a member of the Toronto squad. How many of the players look like they fear the consequences of not performing? Ron Wilson took shots at the outgoing leadership in Mats Sundin, Darcy Tucker, and Brian McCabe. Has Dion Phaneuf even began to fill their shoes? The four fundamentals were defined moments upon his arrival “truculence, pugnacity, testosterone, belligerence”, his words exactly. This team and the ones that preceded it had little to none of any of these qualities.
What seems to be the real diagnoses of what happened here is that 2 guys got invited to a really big club that has limited rules and unlimited resources. They each brought with them tremendous egos and are now finding out what it is like to have 29 other clubs despise you for the sole purpose of being you. They have waged an unmitigated war with the media in the city, using it to their advantage at times and taking aim at the reporters when it suits them. They have traded every player with the club out of town, and are now in sole possession of their own creation. Unfortunately for them their creation is no better than the last guys, its actually slightly worse. They blame the media for the fans displeasure with the current situation, but take no real responsibility for it and offer no solution. The lack of accountability that they sought to abolish, is alive and well. Perhaps this accountability is worse than before, as popular theory was that John Ferguson Jr. was never truly able to manage the club without interference from above.
And for all the talk that next season will be better, it really is time for a reality check. The Ottawa Senators look like they will continue to improve, the Buffalo Sabres will not likely have another off season, the Boston Bruins are built to last. Outside of the division Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York (Rangers), Carolina, Tampa, Florida, Washington, Winnipeg, all look to have clubs that will be better than the Maple Leafs. This is not a problem that is going to be fixed quickly, and with the internal rules that Burke has placed on the organization it might not at all. It will take much more than a new coach to fix the mess that has been made by Brian Burke.
The fundamental question really remains, does Burke have this team on a path to success? Looking at the organization from the top down, the answer looks bleak.