Burke Takes Bad Rap For Mortgaging Future

Toronto is off to a horrid start and things are likely to get worse as they start a five game road trip on the west coast on Saturday. The blogs and radio waves are already filled with people attacking the moves that Burke has made. The most common refrain is that he has mortgaged the future of the team by trading away the team’s top pick the next two years as well as the second rounder in 2010/11.

While I would not have made the Kessel trade since I am not as aggressive as Burke, what I see is Burke fast tracking the team’s youth movement, not abandoning it. During the off season Burke did not just use the draft to pick up youth, he also pushed the Leafs ahead by adding youth in top ranked US college players and by signing Gustavsson from Sweden. Burke is using this approach to supplement the draft and will likely continue to proceed in this manner next year when he is without his top pick.

What Burke is trying to do is accelerate the growth through youth movement by expanding his strategy beyond conventional draft picks. He is willing to fight for top US collegians, top Europeans and by going after young RFA and UFA players.

Kessel is about to turn 22 and is coming off a 36 goal season. He will contribute more to the Leafs this year and next year then the number one pick in next year’s draft. Gustavsson will likely be the starting goaltender for the Leafs and he will likely have more value then the following year’s number one pick. Hanson is likely the equivalent of what the Leafs would hope to get with the number two pick in 2010/11.

While Burke did give up two number one picks and a number two this summer, he picked up Kessel, Gustavsson and Hanson which map to those picks. In addition, Burke also signed Tyler Bozak who should see quite a bit of playing time with the team this season.

The net result is that Burke added four under 25 year old players and has only given up two firsts and a second to achieve this. The top players that he added are more certain to have NHL potential then what may be available in the draft.

From my viewpoint he is not mortgaging the future, but is just fast tracking the addition of youth to the lineup.