Real Kyper & Bourne - What It Means to Be GM of the Leafs w/ Brian Burke

Episode Date: May 29, 2023

Nick Kypreos and Justin Bourne open with Team Canada winning gold against Germany in the World Championship before they get into the nitty-gritty of the NHL rumour mill. As they await Kyle Dubas's decision, they dive into rumours of the Columbus Blue Jackets speaking with Patrick Roy for the head coaching position and Peter Laviolette being the front-runner for the Rangers head coach position. Next up, the guys are joined by former Leafs’ GM and NHL executive Brian Burke on the possibility of Dubas losing deals, what he has in store for him if he joins Pittsburgh and what it's like being the GM in Toronto. Finally, the guys wrap up with a look ahead at tonight’s Game 6 Conference Finals matchup between the Dallas Stars and the Vegas Golden Knights.The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Sports & Media or any affiliate.  

This is Real Kipper and Bourne on Sportsnet 590 The Van. And it's Real Kipper and Bourne Summer Edition. We're going to jam-pack as much as we can in one hour. Nick Kiprios, Justin Bourne, Derek Brandeo, Jen Rolnick back in the circuit. And stepping in for Leaf Nation, Sammy McKee as David Siss. Boom-bop. Right on there in the circuit and stepping in for Leaf Nation. Sammy McKee is David Siss. Boom.

Bye. They're in the McKee chair. Look at him. He's just day. Hey, it's like he just gave birth. Look at him. Look at how proud he is.

He should be. Where is our Sammy? Oh, I'll give you one guess. It's, it's almost June. Where, why do you think he's missing our show?

Cause he's golfing somewhere. Is it a, an event, an official event, a Canadian event? Yeah, it's a legitimate thing. You know, he does host the golf guys on the weekend for Sportsnet, and this is a Golf Canada event. I think he's got to show his face. You've got to be a part of that to get the swag, and Sammy's been pushing to get a free driver or something

from someone on the show, and this is the only way. got to be there no no for sure yeah if it's for free it's for mckee i like that yes for free it's for mckee it's pretty good yeah well listen uh in about 19 minutes we're going to welcome in brian burke wow yeah and i don't i'm not sure if we've heard from him if he's gone on record since he's left Pittsburgh or not, but I'm really looking forward to this in about, what, 18 minutes now. Yeah. So that'll be great. We better get to it.

We've got world championships, which always kind of gets buried a little bit this time of year for under the NH nhl stanley cup playoffs but of course canada has a great win which is great but the the story is latvia latvia wins bronze isn't that great their fans travel they have passionate fans so we'll get into that as well in the meantime kind of quiet on the weekend for the toronto maple leaves in terms of their search and memorial day weekend in the united states so that's quiet south of the border but i assume that things should heat up again for brendan chanahan yeah i

can't believe anyone was acknowledging the holidays whether in canada or the u.s in terms of the hunt for the next gm of the toronto maple leafs there are no days off until that happens some reporting from elliot over the weekend that you know tree living was a guy that they had met with a couple of times really nothing new that i've come across i don't know about you in terms of people they're talking to or what may happen here. Sounds like everything we talked about last week, Dubas seems like he's on track for Pittsburgh. Without anything concrete,

where do you put the difference between someone that's available here and now or someone like Doug Armstrong who still has three more years on his deal. Is that for you a complete wish list kind of hit for the home run here? Yeah, I'd love to see that happen. You're in a bad situation if you're only hiring from a pool of five unemployed previous gms and i don't say unemployed disrespectfully there's just not that many gigs but it is a pretty limited pool and you don't feel like you're you know you're getting one of the best ones in that case so sure i would love to see them get a little bit more aggressive but i wonder how much managing of things brendan shanahan is doing in the interim you know we had talked last week

that he had already called the core four guys and kind of gave them some inkling that they may be back you know so i wonder if there is he is kind of running things until well it just to me jb that makes no sense at all i don't see where the benefit would be. And is it semantics here where he kind of said, like our intention right now isn't, and there's that famous word now. Intention. My intention to sign, my intention not to trade you. Intention voids everything that comes after it.

What a great word this time of year. Yeah, we intend to be employed next hockey season, by the way. But if Brendan Shanahan is told basically everybody and anyone that the future of Sheldon Keefe is in the hands of, or not in the hands, but will not be decided until we get a general manager voice, and the sense is that Brendan really wants, if not him, to make the decision on Sheldon,

then his voice would weigh heavily in getting to that conclusion. So why wouldn't it be exactly the same for the core four? As in making decisions about who's going to go and who's going to stay from Brendan? Yes. So was it played up a little bit more about the core four having this safe kind of answer to their future? Last week, I think it was Chris Johnson had reported that he thought the core four believed they were all going to be back. You know, they had once thought that they were going to be traded. And this kind of made them think they'd all be back together again i don't see i don't see brendan shanahan making them feel that safe no

about their future what would be the point of making them feel that safe if anything here you need to shake the tree you need people feeling uncomfortable and unsafe and with pressure right for sure like there's no more coddling of anyone at this point. You have to, if you're the new general manager, you have to make calls on each and every player. Yeah. And if you don't, then you're not doing your homework. You're not doing your due diligence.

One thing I'm excited to ask Berkey about today is this reporting structure. You know, like how much say would or should the president have in hockey decisions? Like the ones we're talking about here, Kip and how much say would the board have in hockey decisions? Cause it seems like at the end, that was the thing that drove Dubas out of here. Is that a,

is that a wrong conclusion that i have that in the end the lack of autonomy the lack of the struggle with that sort of structure is what drove dubas somewhere else there seems to be a picture being painted out there that that's the case yeah but for for kyle who had been five years as the general manager, and then, correct me if I'm wrong, another three or four. As assistant. In the organization. Yeah, he ran the Marlies when I was there. You've had 10 years to kind of see the way things work.

And in the last second, bottom of the ninth. Two men out. You are now trying to change the rules of how things work. And when you're dealing, and this is a great conversation to have with Brian Burke in terms of, you know, how different is it when you work for like say one man samuel he's had anaheim right right that's one owner and he had to report to him as the gm walks up the stairs gets a yes and no comes down right do you think that's the way it worked for the last nine years for kyle dubas of course not you have ml MLSC. So. I just can't imagine missing a deal because of that. Like, hey, you know, I'm just going to say that, you know, it sounds to me like maybe he could have got at home once upon a time, but couldn't get the approval process.

This is piecing together 300 rumors and, you know, innuendos from people doing reporting. It feels like he couldn't get a D-man he wanted at some point. People are reporting that it was some big name D-man, whatever. That's what it feels like he couldn't get a D-man he wanted at some point. People are reporting that it was some big-name D-man, whatever. That's what it feels like to me. I find it impossible to believe that he could have had a guy and then said, I got to go to my board, or I got to go to Brendan, let me get back to you on that,

and it took too long. It wasn't the board he needed to go to. He needed to go to Brendan. Okay. And then Brendan needed it. And Brendan goes to the board. Okay. That's the way it works.

But I find it hard to believe that he couldn't tell again say it's nashville david poyle or barry trot say i gotta go through a process here it's gonna be two days to get you know an answer for you here we're gonna do this deal i just gotta talk to these guys i can't believe you lost a player because of that even if you did that's just the way it is yeah but that's not cool i know you gotta be nimble enough as an organization to get guys if if if that if that in fact is the case then yeah that's a conversation you should have in private with your you know a potential new contract 100 you made our team worse because i couldn't do deals there there's also a reason why you know we are who we are and this is the way it's run and yeah there might be opportunities

when you may lose a deal because of it because it's such a machine here it's a multi-billion dollar machine here and it's run much differently than Anaheim or Florida or other places. And either you live with it or you walk. I guess I just find it hard. Yeah, that's what happened it sounds like. It shouldn't be a surprise after nine years. No, it wouldn't be a surprise, but you can see yourself getting fed up with it and saying,

if it's not going to change then i am going to leave i find it hard to believe that mlsc being where they are after not winning a cup in since 1967 they're gonna be this company that lose deals because i agree of their red tape i i i i don't i don't buy it i don't buy it if there's a deal to be had and brendan makes one phone call and I agree. Of their red tape. Isn't the board three people? I don't buy it. If there's a deal to be had and Brendan makes one phone call and says, here's the contract we're bringing in and we need this done in 30 seconds, I cannot believe someone at the board would say, no, we're going to check with our accountant first.

Yeah, I agree with that. And so I find that I don't necessarily think that that's accurate on how this all played out but i do think that there would be frustration you know with kyle and wanting it to be differently here to be different i wouldn't be shocked if that were the case but but yeah for them to already have gone to those core four guys and say hey you're gonna stick around or you'll likely be back don't love that also don't, I also feel like it's borderline unfair that Sheldon Keefe is just like waiting to get fired. Right?

I like. This has been an ongoing thing throughout the, you look at any firings. The last thing they care about is whether or not someone has enough time to go find another job. It's like we're you've got another year on your deal you'll get paid but we get to we get to dictate for sure and it's it's all about us right now it's not about you and it's not about your family situation or what's best it's about what's best for us selfish, but hey, some of these guys are paid two or three million dollars to deal with it.

Do you think Sheldon would be having conversations with other teams in quiet right now? He'd be crazy not to. And you don't want to be disrespectful, and you don't want to ever be linked to tampering but a friend of a friend could easily make some phone calls and start throwing some hypotheticals out there sure let's just say let's just say this happens. Would there be interest in this person? If that happens, yes.

How much would you do it for? There will be. How many years would it? A few people accused me of saying last week that Pittsburgh would have tampered with Kyle if you said that Kyle's been had Pittsburgh in his back pocket and it's like, that's not the way it works. And I'm not accusing anybody of tampering. I'm just accusing somebody of maybe getting somebody to ask somebody to ask

somebody a hundred percent. Like what's tampering. If again, if this happened. And how do you think these things come together? Like, come on, people. You can't be naive on this. It's a schoolyard. Like, hey, if my buddy were to be interested in you, Julie,

would you possibly be interested in my buddy? The one thing you don't want to do is don't get caught with a note in your hand. That's right. Right? As you pass it on through your grade seven class. That's right. You know better than to leave a paper trail at that point. Exactly.

Just heard, also heard that, I don't think it's a given that a guy like Mark Giordano will be back next year. Really? He's got another year on his deal, if I'm not mistaken. Can you take a look? Sure. But there might be a suggestion that he might hang it up. Really? That's interesting.

Well, I mean, is he turning 40? Has he turned 40 yet? So he has next year at 800 grand. Okay. And yeah, I think he's pretty close to... How old is he? He is age 39, turns 40 this year. Turns 40 in a few months.

In a few months. Yeah, right before the season starts, actually. I would think a guy like that, he took some hard hits. Yeah. Was it Bennett that smashed him into the glass? He's probably made $70 million. Let's check.

Close, 63. Okay. He's doing very well. You want to convert that to Canadian funds? Yeah, that's right. Sure. So at age 40 with a bright future ahead of you, do you want to take a chance to get your head splattered in the

boards again for 800 grand that's a great question you know but people are different on that stuff like andre kasha played again last year or tried to you know like carlo pozo friend of mine just signed another one year 2.5 million dollar deal to be the captain of the sabers he's had six concussions or something and went to i think uh anyway he's he's been through it so some people just they want to play you know they yeah they're players through and through oh no 100 and i i think that's one of the things that you know mark and his family got to really sit down and ask themselves again whether or not you know it's worth it for another shot at it and you know maybe he'd be in a position to also say what's it look like next year what am i coming back to if if in fact but i outside of uh

the number one concern would for me me, it would be his, his health and knowing what's at risk to come back for another year. Yeah. And you know, for your, the Leafs and you know, he was so valuable all season long for you, but then you get in playoffs and you know,

was, did he end up getting scratched one game or just seven, 70 something? I think they went 70. Yeah. And so, you know, you just felt like you couldn't use them

the same way that you did. So maybe there's some mutual pause about that. We shall see. Want to talk a little Dallas before we get to, or anything else in the Leafs before we turn that page? Just touching on Elliott's report on the weekend as well about Kyle Dubas uh it he really gave us the impression that it's just Kyle's call right now I was thinking on the way in do you think that he would want to wait to accept it until

the Leafs have a GM kind of like the Leafs hire a guy all the attention goes to tree living or whoever and then the next day or day after that yeah I don't see I don't I don't see any benefit no it's just a band-aid that you're gonna rip off and you're gonna get a ton of attention no matter I don't feel like if it comes first it's gonna get all the attention no no listen at the end of the day you know people are gonna throw it in in his face that if I'm not here, you're not going to see me show up anywhere. That one's going to carry that one for a long time. So what's the difference between saying it next week or next month?

Yeah, and actually you're probably better off just wearing it and explaining what changed in the circumstances. Would it be a surprise to you if he takes it without say uh or he takes it as a as a president of hockey ops that would surprise me he's gonna be the gm for sure for sure well in terms of like i can't see him except hire a general manager and be above him i don't think so i don't think he could keep his nose out of it he's too competitive like he'll want his daily imprint on deciding the roster but you seem like you know something no i don't okay no no i i just i i threw it out last week that uh kyle would be someone that i would think would would ask for the the brass ring here yeah from pitt. Oh, I can see that happening, particularly given their lack of negotiating position.

Pittsburgh has basically said, we want you. You know, what do we have to do to make this happen? I am curious to talk to Brian and just get his sense of like, the Fenway Sports Group came in while he was president. And excuse me for asking you random timeline questions while we're on air, right? It wasn't in place before his hiring. I think he was there and excuse me for asking you random timeline questions while we're on air right it wasn't in place before his hiring i think he was there through the transition the sale

so i'm curious to know how that affected things there whether it be with recording or their view of the organization because clearly they have some idea of wanting to be you know no we talked about last week theo epppstein did you mention to me that we are going to see brian burke on uh nhl network i did see that i was googling around and saw that he was supposed to be there i'm not sure if he's been on yet but we can fire that out there and see if that's part of his plans or you also mentioned uh to me and elliot i think dropped this one as well uh blue jackets may have spoken to patrick waugh yeah yeah that's fascinating he's a firecracker i think the league's better with him in it i think he's electric i want

babcock he'll give us something to talk about he's got an ego and he's not gonna like losing right so i'm curious to see i would love to see that pairing. What are your thoughts on that? Do you think it's possible? You know what I like about Patrick is that he had some success. He won the Jack Adams, right, for Coach of the Year in Colorado. And then it got ugly real quick there. To what extent, I don't really know where the disconnect happened between him and the organization, i.e. sakic uh ownership i don't know yeah but something happened real quick there i just like the fact that the last five years he's gone and worked with kids yeah right he has a sense of who these players are now coming into the league

it's a real advantage i think so and they're winning and how much has he learned or changed i saw him do a media clip at the memorial cup ye old gray beard he looks he looks you know grayer or a little older maybe a little wiser calmer we'll see hey just like brian burke our guest a little older little maybe a little wiser. A little calmer, we'll see. Just like Brian Burke, our guest. A little older, a little wiser. Berkey, how are you? Good, Kipper, how are you? We're well, we're well.

Have you spoken to anybody since you left Pittsburgh or what have you been up to? Everybody anticipated we'd see you on TV right away. My good buddy here, Justin, says that still may happen with the NHL Network. Just maybe talk a little bit about the last few weeks, a month. Well, the answer is I've talked to Hexie and talked to a couple of people who work for the Penguins and mostly been incommunicado.

Moved back to Ontario and I'm just trying to – I had a knee replacement and I'm trying to get the other one scheduled and that's going to be in Pittsburgh. We're keeping our place there for now. But, yeah, no, I don't know if I'm going back on TV or not. We'll have to see. I did a couple days at the NHL Network. Really enjoyed that. I don't know if I'm going back on TV or not. We'll have to see. I did a couple of days at the NHL Network. Really enjoyed that.

I don't know if there's other opportunities there or Sportsnet or anywhere else at this point. Well, we would certainly love to see you around here, Berkey. Thanks for joining us today. Wanted to get your, I guess, just hear a little bit about how things unfolded there in pittsburgh once that new ownership group came in for you there um you know did you feel things change as the new ownership took over did that affect things for you there well first off justin thanks for having me on i didn't mean to ignore you i didn't know who's on i called you jason born jason born a couple days ago ago. Oh boy. Anyway, thanks for having me on. No, what happened?

I mean, the team got sold. That's the third time that's happened to me where a team was sold when I was fired. And, you know, some relatively in one case days, one case months, one case close to a year, I guess, after the team was bought. So I think we knew right away we're at risk when an ownership group comes in. I want everyone clear on this. I said the same thing in Toronto when I got fired.

No owner has the right to have whomever they'd like run the team. The fact the team got sold doesn't mean it's guaranteed you're going to get terminated, but there's a good chance. They bought the team. They spent that money. They're entitled to have the people they want run it. So there's no issue from our standpoint that a change was made, and it's kind of expected in a lot of cases.

But no hard feelings that way. It's just we had hoped that if we had some success, we'd be able to prolong our stays there, but it didn't happen. Hey, Berkey, there's obviously a lot of narratives coming out of Toronto lately from pro Kyle or pro Brendan. But the one thing about Kyle is the stories out there that he didn't get to do things as fast as he would have liked, or he needed more power or the ability to make decisions quicker. Can you speak of the difference between maybe just one owner?

Like, I know you had the Samuelis in Anaheim, or if you've got, you know, a complex company like MLSC with so many divisions or the Fenway Group and how that might have affected Kyle or anyone else in that position? Well, I don't know specifics on how they reported. I know with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, it was pretty simple. We did have a board, and we met once a year with the board. But basically, I told Richard Petty what I thought we should do.

He might say, well, think about this, think about that. But basically, he was the conduit to ownership right up until the team got sold. So it was simple when I got there. It was a little more complicated after that. Here, from my perspective, I don't know. I like both guys immensely. I think Kyle's a really good guy, and I know Shani's a really good guy. It sounds to me, just reading this from afar and not having any inside knowledge, but it seems to me that you had a process they were going through and they were moving toward an extension. That

much was clear, that at least right up until two or three days before, they had had extensive discussions with Kyle's agent and with Channy. So they were moving toward an agreement. And then it went off the rails. I forget what days, Thursday, Friday, whatever. But Kyle met with the media and he was clear that, look, I may not be back. And I think that was the first time, according to Channy, the first time he confronted that fact is,

hey, we might be looking for a new GM. I think right there the math changes. If you're a team president, right there the math changes. If one of the guys that you work for, that he works for you, is your right-hand man, the most important guy in the organization, has just told you, I'm not sure I want to come back. So that was, I think, the first fly in the ointment, if you will. And then it went on, and they said they made exchange proposals,

and that put two new things on the table. One is new terms of employment in terms of money, apparently, and the second is a new reporting scheme to somehow streamline the reporting or make it easier somehow, but affect the balance of power. Now, I will tell you from experience, if you're in the last year of your contract

and you just got beaten in a playoff series that everyone expected you would win, and you want to discuss that after you've had lengthy discussions framing these issues. You want to put two new issues on the table. Oh, but by the way, I know we've gone down the road a long ways, but I want to talk about power. I want to talk about money. That's really a problem. That's a huge problem.

And it's a problem, even if it's not a problem for Shanning which it would be it would be a problem for your owners so then sounds like some of this is just um you know a bit of a power struggle everyone's been talking about succession that show this seems something similar there where you know battling for the the top spot do you feel that there's any chance kyle something changed with kyle Like maybe he knew Pittsburgh may be an option for him and that changes the way he approaches MLSC? Or is this just getting, you know, too greedy, really? Well, that would be tampering. No one would do that, Bertie. No one in our league ever tampered.

That would be tampering. Right, right. Sorry. Sorry for the implication i i i actually i actually in this case i would say um tampering might be an issue i don't think so now with kyle kyle's too honest i really mean that i think he would have gone into this and said straight away i'm doing this i'm not he even said i'm not going to go somewhere else um he's too honest so i think, I think it was a good faith. I need to clear up these two issues.

They were problematic and blew up, but I don't think it was necessarily another suitor. Berkey, do you think that it is a possibility that Kyle may have lost deals because of the red tape? That would be really speculative on my part, Kipper. The answer would be everything I've talked about so far has been pretty clear that people have stated it. It's easy to draw a conclusion from it.

But I'm not going to speculate and say, well, that might have happened. I have no idea. Well, you know, if indeed Kyle does end up in Pittsburgh, you might have some unique insight to the challenges that would face him this offseason. You know, if he does end up there, what is he walking into for decisions and power structures and all that there? Well, the time that I worked with Fenway,

I found them to be forthright and honest and good guys. I had no issues with them. I think they made up their mind on us and where we were going. Much of the reporting since we got fired has been disturbing. There's been a real concerted effort on ownership or coaching staff or both to tell this narrative a certain way. I'm not going to engage in telling the other

side of that story because that's just silly in my mind. I could say, well, what about this? What about that? That's just silly. I'm not interested in that. That narrative has changed. As far as my time working for them, I enjoyed working for Fenway.

Berkey, there's going to be a new general manager and you're someone that's lived it here in Toronto and what advice would you give that new guy about this market compared to any other? Is it just

wrong of him to come in here and think hey a job's a job what's so different about here and the challenges well you you're talking this sound like cliches but you can dig up my uh the comments from my press conference when i was announced in toronto and i I told you, it's the Vatican. It's not just any other job. It's the New York Yankees. I went to some remote village in South America and sat on the rock, on the stone wall outside and watched as people walked from remote areas.

You'd see the first five things you would see the worst time or a hat or a T-shirt or a black hat would be Toronto Maple Leafs, Dallas Cowboys, New York Yankees, Boston Celtics, and then, I don't know, some man you or someone else, right? Yeah. Some other thing that's popular globally. But you're talking a global brand. You're talking a famous, famous, like totally renowned across the globe.

I remember after we won the Cup in Anaheim, we opened the season in London, England. And I went to the O2 Arena just to watch. I stood in the crowd and watched people walk in. And I would guess, and no one knew who I was. It was great. But I would watch and I would estimate there were 2,000 sweaters. Teams had NHL sweaters on.

And out of that number, probably half of them, at least 1,000, but maybe half, were Toronto Maple Leafs sweaters. And then the other common ones, like Montreal is common. Boston's common and popular. They're both real popular brands. Toronto dominated, and we weren't playing. It was Anaheim versus L.A. It wasn't a Leafs game.

There were 1,000 to 2,000 Leafs sweaters there. I've never seen anything like it in my life. The year we had the game at the Big House before I got fired, Gary Bettman called me and said, we're going to have a problem selling tickets in Detroit. And you sell 40,000 tickets in Detroit for the Toronto Maple Leafs. I said, Gary, I'll need 48 hours. Call me back about a week later and say, what about 60,000? I said, well, I need 72 hours. We had ticket requests from 32 countries.

You know how many people are going to fight to get that job? You're going to have a first aid ward with people battered and bruised trying to get that job. So yeah, it's special. Now, is it difficult? Is it pressure filled? Was I able to get it done there? No, I wasn't. But I would still tell anyone it's a special place to work i loved and nicky knows this i loved my time in toronto i loved it even though i didn't have any success with my d even though it got difficult at the end i loved it all well it is such a you know a coveted position now and like the biggest names that are out there are being tied to the job you know whoever it is is going to take this job and it's not like when someone can come in and say,

I'm going to rebuild this thing. I need some time to assess. We're going to tear it down. We got five years. Like they may have to do something significant immediately. Where do you sit on the idea that the core that's been here, that hasn't gone where people expected them to needs to get broken up? Well, again, I'm not, it wouldn't be tampering for me

to talk about it now because i'm not employed by a team but i would say this i've been very open in real time during my time at sportsnet about the big the fab four the big four whatever and the contracts they were given at that time i called it out in real time justin you'll remember that you'll remember it. I said it was a mistake. The sequence they signed them, the amounts they paid them, the no trades, the terms. I went after all of that every bit as it happened.

Again, it's real simple. When things don't work out, it's real simple to say, I told you, I told you, a lot of people didn't. I said it in real time. So, yeah, I think there's some real question marks about how they put this together, what they do next. There's some time frames that kick in now. That's new.

So new contract trade limits and what you can do and what you can't do all kick in. So it changes the timing of the new guy, but it doesn't change the difficulty of the job. This job is flat out hard. There's a lot of hard decisions being made. You're capped out. You're a Canadian team, Canadian taxes. It's hard, but it can be done. And someone's going to figure it out there, and they're going to have a great time.

Do you really think it can be done? Is it even fair to ask someone to come in and assess this and think that you can have all the answers before July 1st when some of those no trades kick in? No. You don't have to figure it all out, though. You just got to figure out two things. What are the two things? You got to figure out what Austin Matthews, if there's no trade, if you're happy with that.

You got to figure out what to do with Mitch Marner. As far as the others, I'll wait. There's no deadline there in my mind. The list of 10 teams on Nylander, I think, kicks in. So what? Okay, so. You need to get a trade made. So Marner, the Marner decision will look after itself

once you get the Matthews decision, do you not? Yes. So what's so complicated? Well, hold on. If Matthews is re-signing, then you think that's the decision you have to make is trade Marner? No, no, no. I'm saying that you probably have to trade Nylander or Marner at some point,

but I think the pecking order would be that you would trade Nylander first out of that group. Yeah. It's a source of much conversation here in Toronto. Does it move the needle enough if you move Nylander? Is Tavares' contract

excluded from this? Yeah, I don't think he's going anywhere. I really believe when you get a no-trade clause, that should be in good faith in general, especially if you gave it to him. I didn't mind if there's no trade and I didn't give it to the player, we might have a discussion about waiving it. But in general, if it's something I gave a guy,

barring some catastrophe or real underperformance, and that's not happened here. Whether you like John Tavares as a player or not, he's kept his bargain here. He's worked his ass off. He's been a good player. He's a good guy. So there's no issue there.

No, I think it comes down to Nylander. And Nylander, by the way, is a guy that I've been critical of on TV. I think he's had two back-to-back spectacular years. So I think he's finally worth the money. I think it took a. So I think he's finally worth the money. I think it took a while. I think he's finally worth the money, and I think he's tradable. And then the last big decision would be there's still an employed coach, and Kip and I have kind of gone back and forth on this.

I kind of feel like it's a strange position for Sheldon Keefe kind of waiting to get fired. Do you have any issue with the way this is kind of playing out for the Leafs coach? Well, it's part of being a coach. It's the unfortunate side of this business is that this guy is going to have to wait out that decision and see what happens. And that's unfortunate.

Like, when a guy is hanging in the balance, the one merciful thing in Pittsburgh was we were fired on the spot the next morning. Yeah. But as far as the what happens next with the coach, he certainly has winning percentage. Here's

the thing about Sheldon Keith in my mind. He's got a winning coach everywhere he's coached. He's had a good record as a coach. He's done a good job in Toronto. I don't think that's a priority for anyone who's looking to bring in a new GM. I don't think that's a priority for anyone who's looking to bring in a new GM. I don't think the coach is a priority.

We only got a few minutes here, Berkey, but I just want to touch base because people have often asked me about playing for you. And the one great thing about having you is that, you know, you're watching my back and anyone else's who's on the ice. And that's been your forte throughout your career. You get to Toronto and then it's a different beast, as you just mentioned. And there were times, Berkey, when I watched you and you got into a few battles with a few around, either through the media, Toronto Sun, Star, I'm not sure, Hockey Night, but you went to battle on a number of occasions, either for your players or for your club. Is there anything that you regretted back then or just felt like, you know, you went too far, it's too big of a beast here.

You know, how thick does your skin have to be to be a general manager a president in this town i the fights that i had with the media were almost always brought on by by someone in the media and almost always involved one of my players for the team not me like if you read back these horrible criticisms of brian burke i seldom responded to him because i don't care. Like Pat Quinn taught me that my first year in Vancouver, 1988, Tony Gallagher wrote something that really hurt my feelings. I was really sour and down about it. And Pat called me and said,

you can't do this job unless you learn to ignore that stuff. So I've never paid any attention to it. But the fights I have were always on behalf of a Phil Castle or Dion and always on behalf of my players or my team. And I'll happily resurrect those again. No regrets that way. I would take back a couple of things in my life. One was losing my son, but no one can do anything about that.

But as far as the way I ran the team, we probably made some decisions too late. Probably didn't deal with the no trades and the different issues too soon, soon enough. But I'll dissect that in my next book. So Berkey, I'm guessing you are the rare person who may not have had a problem with Kyle Dubas going at it with the fans in

the first round against Tampa Bay? I wish I'd have been there with him. I'd have been throwing stuff at him. I love it. You guys know where that press box is. They're right in your face. Yeah.

And everyone thinks Tampa's a mellow audience, and they are mostly. It's a great audience. But they got on me a few times, too. I barked at a few of them. There was some choice language used. Boy, I wish we would have had two hours today with you. Love with our conversation and ample reason why we got to get you back on the air.

Well, I appreciate it. It was good talking to you both. Thanks, Berkey. Appreciate your time. That is former NHL president of hockey operations, general manager Pittsburgh Leafs, Canucks, Ducks. Man, the man has

done it and lived it. I think that's a top 10 interview for the year. That was pretty good. Yeah. That was really good. We should probably break, though, so we don't run out of show. All right. You heard my co-host taking a break from the real Kipper and Bourne show. We are back after these words.

Covering the Blue Jays from an analytical perspective. Jays Talk Plus with Blake Murphy. Be sure to subscribe and download Jays Talk on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Real Kipper and Born on Sportsnet 590 The Van. All right. Like we said, jam-packeded hour jb what do you have for us it is time for playoff picks presented by bet 365 visit the app for the latest odds um you know coming up here is a large game six between dallas and vegas uh vegas right now the underdog at plus 110 on bet three six five I do have I cooked up a little parlay for myself tonight which is simple I got under six and a half

goals parlayed with Jamie Bend over one and a half shots that's a plus 125 payout so basically my thought is five four of the five games in the series have been under six goals the only one that wasn't was game one went to ot went to seven goals and jamie ben's going to be refreshed and embarrassed and shooting the hockey puck because i have no idea who's going to win this i don't know these these two teams are pretty evenly matched to me it is did you did vegas give ottinger a window here to get his game going again? Somebody gave me a stat. He's cooking.

Somebody gave me a stat about how he finishes series compared to starting them, and his save percentage just goes through the roof right now. Yeah, he's played five elimination games in his career and I think won them all with like 960 save percentages so yeah tough to bet against dallas if you do like vegas um bet 365 has another pretty good one which is just betting vegas plus alex petrangelo over uh 0.5 assists and march march or so over 0.5 points so those two guys get a point and vegas wins plus 550 so you know there are ways

to bet vegas and get paid pretty well so when when when we were talking about the leafs being down three nothing uh what did we say it would be the fourth or fifth time i think it's happened four times in history so it would have been the fifth time yeah so now dallas has a chance to be the fifth yeah dallas is sniffing around you're at tonight. And. Been back. On the weekend, we saw the Boston Celtics hang in there. God, Boston. They just win all the time. And that's never been done in the NBA. Has it never been done?

David says boom, bye. I'm pretty sure you're right. Because, you know, typically in basketball, the favorites are heavier favorites, right? You can control the, you put the ball in the best guy's hands. I can see why that would happen. Yeah, Miami is backs against the wall. Aiden Hill's been unbelievable. Right, but the longer the series goes on,

the more it's like Aiden Hill is a third stringer and Jake Olinger is one of the five best guys in the league. It's called Cinderella. Yeah, and Cinderella. And you're getting closer to midnight. Pumpkin, yeah yeah i think so right um i i do think that dallas is going to make it hard but i think it's going to be low scoring you know because i do believe in ottinger and i think vegas will make a good push so

that has been playoff picks presented by bet365 visit the app for the latest you said ben on two a point and a half if ben gets two shots shots. Two shots. And Dallas, or sorry, and the score, total score is under six and a half. Then you win plus 125. It's a pretty good bet. Pretty good bet. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Do you think, I saw someone write me today and was like, hey, should Dallas put Jamie Ben back in after his suspension and they've won two games in a row? The answer is yes. Yeah. He's the captain of the hockey club in a row. The answer is yes. Yeah. He's the captain of the hockey club. He is. And he's going back in.

He's turned himself into a player in the last year and a half, two years, because there was that window where him and Tyler Sagan were like, how do we get rid of these guys? Yeah. Brandeo tells me the Celtics are the fourth team to take it to a game seven. No one has actually overturned a 3-0 deficit. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

That's huge. So I have a theory that I'm curious to get your thoughts on as someone who's seen Stanley Cup playoffs all the way through, played in it, covered it, whatever, that I don't want to say the intensity slows down now, but I think you can't keep up the pace of that first round. Do you know what I mean? Like people are hurt and tired and just like,

it's hard in this back half of the third round. And to me, Jason Robertson, who had a really slow start, wasn't good for a while. It's kind of coming to life. He scored, I think four in the last five games.

Jack Eichel has been very good for vegas you know as things have i wonder if players like that who are more skilled guys have a better chance to shine later in playoffs as attrition sets in uh i i get the theory for sure because there there is there's a tendency to take a little bit of an edge off in the third and fourth round. But no. But I still think that defensively, you're going to see, I think to your point, where we may see a lower scoring game from here on in. Things just get so tight.

And it does get tightened. These skilled players, they just need a moment, right? In a game. I'd be lying if I said, I didn't think about the Toronto Maple Leafs when I asked the question, because you wonder if they get farther into things.

Yeah. If it's not more. I do buy into the fact that you're shot out of a cannon in the first round and it's just uh even that second round and then do you remember sam bennett hitting david camp to start game one of that series like it was a borderline assault but it was perfect for florida and just what they needed and david camp was a little he played well in the series but you know you're looking over your shoulder, you get hit like that. So, yeah, the pace just changes. You just can't play two months.

I wish we had more time for Brian Burke. I know. What did you think of that interview? I mean, I know we liked it. He's always riveting television and radio and podcasts now. And, yeah, like he's done it. Yeah, interesting, though, that he views the core four conversation so decisively that really there's not a ton to decide.

I just think it's been, I think it's way overplayed. If any of those four guys have now a comfort zone because of a call from Brendan Shanahan, I think they're making a big mistake. I get his point though though, that, like, you know, you're saying that you need to shake it up. Well, Nylander's no trade isn't a no move. It's a no trade list of 10 teams.

And if you want to trade a guy, you can do that just as easily down the road. I get that idea. I just, I personally have seen this team do this for so many years. I think I just want to see something different. I can't do this year again where we in November know that this core four is playing Tampa Bay. Would you, would you be a general manager or president that just says we, a change for the sake of making a change? would it have to be but it's dumb would

it would it have to be knowing for sure that you're getting something different in a positive way that uh advances your program yeah uh pal of mine sean mackindoe wrote an article reviewing like five times that stars have kind of pushed for trades um you know like talking about chuck like we knew he was getting traded and what the other teams get back and because no one is good as those players you usually get a few pieces back and then you know let's say it's three pieces and if not all three of them take, which they never do. Then you end up with kind of two mediocre pieces. It always ends up looking bad. Always.

Barry and... Barry and Kerfoot for Kadri. And Kerfoot for Kadri. Like, the idea is we plug two holes, and Kerfoot's going to be Kadri light, you know? And it's like, in the end, you plug no holes, right? Because you're getting, well, guys who didn't work here for various reasons.

But those are you know those are typically how these deals pan out so yes i'm saying change for change's sake but i don't want that to come back so all right you just can't please me a couple minutes here uh you think laviolette ends up in new york there was also some talk about patrick waugh in new york uh where do you see the rangers going sheldon keith's name too's name, too. Yeah, Laviolette in New York makes sense. I was like, wasn't he already there? No, that was Alain Vigneault. I can see Laviolette.

We had him on our show, what, a month ago, three weeks ago, and he was tremendous. He knows this stuff in and out. He's got command of a room. He could handle the media there, no issue. It sounds like Spencer Carberry, of course, associate coach with Sheldon keith currently yeah uh is is garnering some interest as well yeah coach of the year uh in the ahl and

hershey which is washington's team they need a coach i i've i can see that would happen in carberry to washington a lot better than like the spotlight in new york yeah i think you take that you can't give it to Carberry. I don't think you make him a New York Rangers coach. That's that's a bit much of a jump. All right. Just like that. Our hours up.

What holds you think Sammy's on right now? If he's playing by himself, he's played 54 holes already. Fastest player on earth. All right. Our thanks to Brian Burke, who was fantastic. And we're back tomorrow. Stay safe, everybody. Enjoy Dallas and Vegas tonight.