right, he wasn't twiddling his thumbs he was making horrible decisions left right and centre that resulted in him getting fired

I mean don't get wrong, he made HORRENDOUS trades. But if Brian Burke is giving you some wisdom, you listen. Not a guy i would like to GM again, but he knows the game

It's not guarenteed, but ya, 15th overall picks are a mixed bag. You could get a guy like Erik Karlsson (aka Panarin in this case). You could get a complete bust.
I think it's most likely he turns out like Luke Kunin (15th overall in 2015?) in terms of how good he is.

There seem to be three arguments here, and I think one is ludicrously naive, and the other two are very reasonable.
1. Nope, leafs are awesome.
2. Yes, Burkie is right.
3. Leafs need to move someone, but it shouldn’t be nylander.

Number 1 is just silly.

This.

Sure we don’t always agree with their decisions, and even they get it wrong sometimes, but it’s silly when fans call the GM’s or coaches stupid, or worse, think their opinion is better than NHL GM’s or coaches. You can’t argue with that level of stupidity.

Tell that to theleafsseason then, he thinks Vesey is an ahler.

And pigs will fly on jet packs too

Question: the season after he made the kessel trade, it was looking like the leafs were going to be a bubble playoff team if i recall. Then the 18 wheeler went over the cliff or whatever. If that doesn’t happen, and the leafs hand over picks 14, 16, and 44, is his tenure looked at that poorly?

There core is young. They now have a coach that's on the same page as the GM (as far as roster construction and playing style), and the coach isn't starting half way through the season.

They've improved their defence. They added some different elements to their forward group. They have solid depth (in terms of NHL options at every position).

All these ingredients can lead to an improved team. There are obviously no guarantees in sports.

But to write them off because they didn't move a young talented forward in order to upgrade from Justin Holl to _______ doesn't make much sense to me.

I can see several routes to improvement, if you can't then I guess we disagree.

You could get Zach Senyshyn.

Nah just kidding. I knew that guy was a bust ten seconds after he was drafted.

You still haven't told me how you know this.

Hopefully Amirov is better than Senyshen lol.

Thats what I'm saying man. Take the wisdom from the experts, not wanna be GM's sitting on their laptops with their fists in a party size lay chips bag and a bud light in the other

They’re a solid team as you described. I’m writing them off as a stanley cup contender, because literally everything the leafs have done on the ice over the last few years has indiciated they are not a contender.

As a leafs fan, even this draft pick still haunts my dreams

Lol why? He stinks.

Point he, he spend much of time as Leafs GM....not doing his job. He was a media hog, just building his next media career. He had the most expensive and highest number of executives him. IMO their jobs was to tell Burke how smart he and how everyone else in Toronto was so stupid. I don't know if it was his incompetence, laziness or drunkensess, that stifled the him or the Leafs to bottom out during his tenure. Sure Burke can have an opinion (on anything) like anyone else, He does have knowledge about how hockey clubs are organized. Just in the later part of the employment as an NHL executive, he was unsuccessful, which I blame solely on the character of Mr Burke.

Do not put anymore obstacles in front of lillgren and sandin, or any other of the youthful dman coming up. Salary cap era you picked your budget on forwards and spent the first rounders on dmen, so time for that to payoff. Another dman that had his wars in other places, not going to solve, leafs need to develop a few that fight into top 4

Uh... what? Is he replacing a dishrag or something? Joe Thornton has never been described as "physical".

Exactly, he stinks. You guys could've gotten Barzal, K. Connor or Chabot... or all of them. Instead you got DeBrusk, whos great IMO but cmon now

And where have you been the last 10 years?

I’m the President to the “Don Sweeney sucks,” fan club.

debrusk, great? eeek

you mean picks 14 and 44 (2010) and pick 16 (2011) as opposed to 2, 32 (2010) and 9 (2011)?

probably, his teams still were at best fringe playoff groups, and his drafting was absolutely abysmal. In your scenario he'd likely have missed on tarasenko or kuznetsov in 2010 and prob would've just picked a bunch of busts in 2011. His drafting record was absolutely horrendous outside of morgan rielly who he got 5th OA

I bet you hold that title well my friend lol