Tree Huggers Cover Your Ears & Eyes! Toronto To Get Tougher!

Saturday’s press conference at the Air Canada Centre to announce Brian Burke as the new President and General Manager was for any Leaf fan a home run of sorts!

Burke while on the interview with Sportsnet said when asked the question, “Are you going to add muscle to the hockey team right away?” Burke emphatically and proudly answered ” Yes”. This for me personally was music to my ears. For someone who believes whole heartily, that there is only one way to play this game and that’s tough!. I will admit as I watched the press conference with my wife, we both looked at each other several times smiling because Burke said several things that I have implemented in every team I have coached or been around for years and years now.

The fact is if I closed my eyes I would swear that it was Burke’s former partner in the player agency years ago Bob Goodenow doing the talking. This is not to say, that these are not Burke’s own thoughts because any one who has watched how he likes to run his teams would know other wise. Burke talked in the press conference,  as Goodenow and I did over the years, about implementing this exact same philosophy, as I did with all my teams. The vision that Burke likes to build his hockey club is as follows :

Top 6 forward group that is made up of a skill group, bottom 6 that is made up of “plumbers” : that do the : shot blocking , fighting , penalty killing , specialty work. I am salivating right now as a Life Long Leaf fan with chills up and down my spine listening to this. Especially, when Burke said that “those specific jobs are important jobs and he says that with great respect ” What I believe when I coached and the players will all tell you to a man, that I want the 3rd and 4th line players  to have jobs in those areas that make them feel every bit as an important part of the team as the goal scoring skill guys. This in my mind is critical to have success and harmony amongst your players. The gritty guys allow the skill guy to make plays and play their games to their best ability with out the fear of getting run over. Neither group is more important than the other period!

The Defense he said which is a little different from my own philosophy was he wants his top 4 D to be made up from a skill group and then the other 2 to again be ” plumbers”. I like to have good puck moving D that can make the first pass, handle the puck and get you out of trouble in your own zone quickly. I want to have at least some toughness on the back end but I differ in that I would take 6 puck movers that play with an element of grit over the two plumbers,that Burke referred too. But over all, Burke sold me and sold me hard today with his words of his preferred style of play. Not to say that I told you so but in my article a few days ago I spoke about 19 yr old rookie Luke Scheen and that he should not be doing the fighting, Burke echoed that exact statement today with Sportsnet. Look for that to be his first move acquiring a legit tough guy.

Burke also said today that he believes the team has to play a system that and I quote,” plays aggressive puck pursuit in all 3 zones on the ice, stands up and answers to any physical challenges on the ice.” Once again, this is bang on the way the game should be played! I have friends that coach at every level of the game from minor to pro and I say this all the time to them that this is the way to build a team in my mind.

Burke humbly called this job his dream job , center of the hockey universe , and just how badly he wanted the job? Well, he admitted to almost being embarrassed how quickly he  said, “yes” when asked to take over this week by Richard Peddie MLSE boss. When asked about Cliff Fletcher, he said, ” Cliff can stay as long as he wants to as far as he was concerned”  and as for Joe Nieuwendyk, he will remain. All other staff and players for that matter under Burke will get a chance to see what they can do moving forward,  he will not trade any players over the Christmas holidays which believe me,  the players will appreciate hearing that.

Burke spoke about the fact that he will address the team tonight before the game, something he doesn’t normally do on regular basis, that coupled with the fact that he said if he was hiring a coach today it would be current Leafs boss Ron Wilson. Look for the players to get a rise out of Burke’s talk, I”ve been told by several players when Burke addresses his team, he speaks in a no non sense very authoritative way. The players will clearly get that he is the boss and this team will play his way or you will be playing somewhere else rather quickly! To that I say thank god finally !

For hockey god online I’m Dave Frost .

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 29th, 2008 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Frost on Ice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.