Brian Burke:
On the implications of the Leafs‘ recent turnaround:
“I’m proud of the guys, they’re working their butts off and that’s important for a lot of reasons; a lot of what we’re trying to build here and reward our fans and our season ticket holders. They’re important wins, and I know people are saying we’re messing up our draft choice but we’ll happily accept that; we’ll take that trade off any time. If I could make a deal – I said this last week, and I’ll say it again today – if I could make a deal today that would put us in the playoffs, I would do it, as long as it was consistent with our long-term strategy. Those type of deals right now are not being presented, so I don’t think it’s going to change our approach.”
On Wednesday’s deadline day operations:
“I’ve never been a big trade deadline guy, I think you guys know that. I think you try to put your team together and fix it the way you want it before Christmas time. Frankly, my teams have been involved in the playoffs for seven straight years, so I have not been in this position of entertaining deals as a seller, this is kind of new…. [on the day] Several people will be working the phones, Dave Nonis, Cliff Fletcher, Jeff Jackson … Joe Nieuwendyk, all fielding calls. You have to have some of the stuff framed up before the last day. You at least have to know what you’re talking about. It’s hard to put a big deal together in a short time, so we’ll try to frame everything, have the frame set and then go from there.”
On the worrisome prospect of the salary cap dropping markedly after the 2010/’11 season:
“Next year’s salary cap … that’s going to be set based on this season’s revenue, and, as I’ve said before, most of our money was already in the till, our selling season was largely complete before all the bad news. So we didn’t see the impact. Whatever impact there’s gonna be, it’s not going to be recorded by most teams until next year. So it won’t affect the cap for next season, in my opinion… not dramatically. I am nervous about what happens after that for the 2010-2011 season, so we are being quite cautious about taking on money for that season or signing guys into that season before we see where that goes.”
On Wilson’s say in any trade deadline activity:
“Well, I get his opinion anyway, whether I like it or not. Our coach is, as you know, not shy. I think Ronnie’s a good judge of talent and he’s the guy who interacts with the players everyday. So we do seek his input regularly. He’ll have quite a bit to say about who stays and who goes but my coaches always had that. You hire good coaches and you involve them in the process. There’s no point in me bringing in a player that our coach doesn’t like… and then I gotta move him again. We try to keep him involved.”
On the prospect of taking back salary and the lack of activity so far:
“We’ve put together a whole bunch of proposals to teams, utilizing our cap space to maybe take back some money and maybe get some picks for players that way. We’ve thrown out a whole plethora of possibilities at teams with no luck so far. It’s like fishing, you know. Sometimes you’re fishing and you don’t get a bite for a while and then all of a sudden it heats up. So we’re waiting for the biting to start.”
On the importance of the draft within a cap system:
“If we can build some picks back in through this process and put some bullets back into the gun that way, that’s what we’d like to do. The draft picks are vitally important in the cap system in my opinion. You got to keep them, you got to draft well and you got to develop. To me, that’s the only way you’re going to be successful long-term in a cap system.”
Dominic Moore on his contract situation:
“I’ve stated all along here that there’s no place I rather be than Toronto and I take a lot of pride in wearing the Blue and White. Hopefully there’s something that’s fair to both parties.”
Darren Dreger reported earlier today that the two parties are “more than a million dollars apart,” so that may indeed be hopeful. Burke told the AM640 crew earlier today that “we’ve had some discussions and it’s too early to say whether we will be able to reach some common ground. We’ll nail that down by tonight, so there’s plenty of time to move him if it looks like he’s not going to sign.”
The latest update I received from a source suggests that Moore’s mulling over whether or not he wants to take significantly less to remain in Toronto.
-Kypreos on the Kaberle-Bruins rumours:
I have no doubt that they have had numerous conversations and I have no doubt their [Boston’s] first rounder has come up in conversation, and a few different prospects, including Colborne. As far as something being on the table, I don—t buy it. Have they had conversations? Yeah, don—t be stupid people. Kypreos then went onto say that the B’s have a high regard for Colborne and are worried that they could have another Joe Thornton situation on their hands if they cut ties too prematurely.
