Ex Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke Is a Living Legend

You're a Legend Burkie!

In 2016, years after buying a Dion Phaneuf jersey and renouncing the Brian Burke school of hockey thought, I wouldn't have believed I would look back positively on the Burke years, but here we are.

Because Burke knew something I didn't realize and I don't think people think enough about:

The only path to success outside of pure luck is to hit big on a high risk high reward play that no one else would even think of.

That, unless you get insanely lucky and draft well five years in a row, you have to try to succeed in an all-or-nothing sport (no one cares about the regular season or being runner up in the SCF) by operating in a cap system that more or less guarantees parity while being completely at the mercy of injuries and the NHL's nearly random playoff tournament.

The reason I assume Burke knows this and believes it is because on every team he managed he tried to orchestrate a massively high-risk high-reward move, and yet, he's clearly one of the smartest and most educated people to ever be involved in hockey.

If he thinks this, I think it's worth considering.

On the Ducks, where he won a Stanley Cup, he traded for a 32 year-old Chris Pronger by paying 2 firsts, a second, Joffrey Lupul and Ladislav Smid, two players recently drafted in the top 10. It's a massive deal that would have been roasted on Twitter, had it existed then.

Instead Bruke won the Cup. But how many times would it actually pay off to trade what amounts to four first-round picks for a 32 year old in a sport where most 32-year-olds shouldn't be playing?

The Vancouver Canucks never won a Cup but they were perennial contenders for a decade because Burke orchestrated the massive trade that ended with him drafting both Daniel and Henrick Sedin with the second and third picks of the 1999 NHL Entry Draft.

This brings us to the Leafs.