The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Brian Burke on the Battle of Florida, Upcoming Olympics, and more

Episode Date: February 7, 2026

Brian Burke joins The Sheet to unpack one of the biggest stories in the NHL, breaking down the Artemi Panarin trade and what it means for the league as teams head into the Olympic break. Marek and Burke also dive into the chaos surrounding the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning rivalry, discuss the timing and impact of the upcoming Olympic pause, react to Ryan Miller’s recent comments about Burke, and answer listener questions.Leave a voicemail: https://www.speakpipe.com/TheSheetEmail us: [e-mail] TO OUR SPONSORS!!👍🏼 Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/👍🏼Uber Eats: https://www.ubereats.com/caReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@FNBarnBurner🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoffReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!#TheSheet #JeffMarek #BrianBurke #DavidPagnotta #NHL #NHLTradeDeadline #TradeRumors #ArtemiPanarin #FloridaPanthers #TampaBayLightning #OlympicBreak #HockeyPodcast #NHLDebate #DailyFaceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

He is, of course, well, someone who's normally with us on Wednesdays, making a rare Friday appearance is Brian Burke, who joins me now. Burkey, how are you today? Good, Jeff. I'm doing this outside. It's very quiet when I sat down, but it's noisy all of a sudden. So, so far it sounds great. As long as we have you here, and you can hear and see everything that we have for you because we have a couple of things that we want you to watch, then we'll be great. But I want to start off with this. So this morning, I was filling in for Colby Cohen on. on the morning show here, Morning Cup of Hockey. And our guests were Max Gershberg and Jake Rogel, who were the producers and directors of Making a Miracle,

the new Netflix documentary about 1980 and The Miracle on Ice. I don't know that I've ever really talked to you about 1980, now that we have eyes to Italy next week and the Olympic Games and hockey. And we all know what the effects were of 1980 and that team and the win against. the Soviets, you know, as Patrick Kane becomes the highest scoring, American-born player in the history of the game,

you can cascade that all the way back to 1980. What memories do you have of the miracle on ice? Well, I remember it's odd because I played college hockey against most of the guys, probably 13 or 14 of the guys that played in the Olympics. I played summer hockey with the rest, or the total of 14. So maybe like BU, like Oruzioni, Sil, Ocala, and all that group I played against the Providence.

And I played summer hockey with Philber, Foda, Buzzy Schneider, a bunch of the Western guys played summer hockey with them. So I knew a lot of them, played against a lot of them. I was my second year of law school, and they won the gold. I remember my roommate came to me and said, you want to know who won? Because remember, it was on tape to light.

That's right. It's on tape to lake. So he said to me, do you want to know who won? I said, no, don't tell me. I'm going to go watch the game later. What was your reaction? Like, at a certain point, you have to realize, like, hold on. Like, holy smokes, like, U.S. is right in this thing.

Can they actually pull it off? Like, what do you remember from actually watching that game, you know, hearing, you know, Al Michaels and Ken Dryden calling it? Do you have any memories of when you finally saw it? Yeah, I remember when Erudsononi scored, I was elated like everyone else. But I remember thinking there's, no way they can do this. It was truly

a miracle. There's no way that team should have won that game. It says it hurt Brooks and the players. What, you know, see, in this documentary, and I encourage everybody to watch this thing, just when I thought that, like, honestly, Berkey, that I had read everything about 80

and that I had seen everything about 1980, and I couldn't glean anything more, there was a couple of new things in there that I never really knew, and a lot of them revolved around Herb Brooks. And they have some great audio of Herb and the interview as kids, and it's a

wonderful experience, but would I say the name Herb Brooks, we generally tend to think of, you know, the angry coach that got the most out of a rag-tag bunch of college players and that had a, you know, then coached in the NHL as well, and the University of Minnesota.

When I say Herb Brooks, what comes to your mind? I'm Petitor. I'll tell you a story to tell you all I need to know about Her Brooks. We played summer hockey. I used to put all the teams together. So like three or four golfers, they had each of the four teams. When you're probably all eight in the middle of the team, he packed

like the roster and win my own and the whole thing. He'd beat it anyway. And after it, I said to Herb Brooks. I said, Herb, who packs a roster for a summer league game? Who does that? Put his arm around. He said, Berkey, always take you heads. Last of Herb Brooks. He would bet on a card game who would bet on a game of jacks if he were playing. Unbelievable guy, competitive,

but a great coach and a great person. I'm really glad he's one of those guys. He died way too young. He's one of those guys, I'm glad I got to know. You know, it's interesting because, you know, here was, you know, and even though it wasn't the gold medal game, The big game was, of course, against the Soviet Union. In the documentary, they show old training videos of Anatoly Tarasov,

leading the players through various workouts and kettlebell drills and aerobic training and cardi, like all these types of things. And they show what Herb wanted to do with this team and turn the team into more of a passing team. That was always a calling card to the Soviets. a team that was in like top physical condition. We all know about, you know, how Herb ran his guys into the ice if they weren't competing and they weren't in the best possible condition.

I look at 1980 and I say to myself, the way the Americans played and how in shape they were, they kind of beat the Soviet Union at their own game. Where a lot of other coaches would have been like, we got to do something different. Herb was actually pretty bold. He's going to beat the Soviets the way the Soviets played hockey. Yeah, that's what was truly revolutionary. It was 1960, the Olympics were won by the U.S. and Squaw Valley. They won a gold medal.

So that was not that distant future. So A.E. wasn't that far away. But it seemed like the world had progressed as hockey people way above the U.S. So for him to say, we're going to beat them at their game, was truly radical, revolutionary, not just innovative, was radical. Yeah, it really was. Okay, which leads us to another U.S. Olympian in Ryan Miller. Now, he sat down with Johnny Lazarus this past week.

So John's done a number of interviews with ex-American Olympians, and Ryan Miller is one of them. And as you're about to see here, Berkey, Ryan Miller talks about you. Here's Ryan Miller with Johnny Lazarus. Do you feel like the 2010 team almost set the tone for the 2014 team? Like, you know, I've heard some guys talk about how you felt confident going to 2010, but you weren't sure if you get as far as you did. And because you did that in 2010, maybe the expectations were much higher in 2014. Yeah, I think there's, when you look back at the way the team was built,

I just think in 2010, you know, I give Brian Burke some credit here. Like, he's really good at talking, as we all know. I think he's also had a really good idea about planting seeds. You know, he wanted to make sure we believed we could win. But I think he was out there telling everybody we're not sure, right? Like, he's bringing it down so that there's not a ton of pressure, and he's really managing that really well. But it kind of was the same thing.

We had a belief, and we thought if we got hot, we could do something special. But at the same time, there was that lightness of, like, let's just see how this is going to go, and just build that confidence up. And I think it played really well for the group we had. All right, Berkey. Ryan Miller talking about Brian Burke planting seeds in 2010, true or false? True, but Ryan Miller has been very gracious to me.

Ryan Miller was the reason we were in the gold medal game. He was awesome. He was great. And our whole train was a real pus for us. Downcing quick and Ryan Miller, awesome. And they were ready to roll. even though he didn't play much. But I think the group, we were picked to finish six.

That's what people don't remember about that Olympic tournament. We were picked to finish six. No one thought we'd win it. So for us to get into the gold medal game and losing overtime, it was quite a finish. Was Ryan Miller accurate in that, you know, publicly pumping the guys up, we're going to win gold, but also making sure that, you know, outside of the team expectations were lowered and the pressure wasn't on the guys at all times. Well, yeah, a little bit.

But what bothered me was we went 3 and 0 in the pool round. So the first three games we played, we went 3 and 0. I felt our team was getting cocky. My son Patrick ironically said to me, that your guys are getting really full of themselves. And so I called in the senior management group and told them, I said, we haven't beaten anyone yet. We haven't beaten anyone yet.

This is just a preliminary round. What are we doing? And I went publicly and challenged him. So we need more than a gold tender to win a medal. And the guys responded really well. As we look forward to next week, you know, the next time we're talking after this conversation, it's going to be, you know,

when the games are getting going here. How do you handicap this tournament? How do you look at this tournament? I think everybody, well, certainly in North America, have their fingers crossed for a candidate. to the U.S. final, just coming off of the great hockey that we saw last year at Four Nations to say nothing of, you know, the great games we've seen in the past. When you look at this field, when you look at the pools, when you look at the teams,

you look at the injuries, you look at the replacement. Seth Jarvis is in for Braden Point. What goes through Brian Burke's mind? Well, I think there's a lot to be made, a lot being made about these substitutions and replacements that have no bearing on how it's going to play out. don't tell me Seth Jarvis doesn't belong to be on that team. We had a bunch of fillings in Vancouver as well in the Olympics. We had four guys come in and fill in and did really well.

So I don't think it's going down to that. I can come down to goaltending and special teams. I'm nervous about goaltending on both the USA and Canada, although I really predict it won't be a factor in either tournament. I worry about Hullabuck and how he's playing. I worry about anything and how he's played. You mentioned Seth Jarvis there and, like, look, that was the yesterday edition. You feel horrible for Braden Point.

You feel horrible for anybody who misses the Olympics. I'll tell you what, that game between Florida and Boston, I watched the other night when Charlie McAvoy got hit, I automatically thought the worst. Like, oh, I just hope it doesn't cost this young man his shot of playing in the Olympics. But Seth Jarvis specifically is interesting because when I think of Seth Jarvis, one, I think of someone that because of the way he uses the ice, like the way he uses the space, he really forces defenders to make decisions and make decisions they don't want to make. He's like that shifty and that tenacious.

Also, he's a really aggressive penalty killer. Like that's the thing that I really have the inching because they replaced Braden Point with someone who's calling cards. Sure, he can play offense and he plays on the top line with Ajo and Svetnikov in Carolina, but he's just a great penalty killer, Berkey. They are jobs. They are not players. They are jobs. You're replacing for Doug Armstrong or Billy Garragher, you're replacing the guy who does that job. So it cracks me up. They say, oh, Zach Sevin is going to be in. Zach Hyman's going to be in. They're going to replace that job. That's what they're going to do. They're going to say, what job did he do on this team? And he should read in my book. It's all those jobs that's a script of how to win a championship. team. Someone gets hurt. You don't say, okay, let's bring the next guy in. You say to yourself, let's bring in the next guy that does that job. They can block shots, kill penalty. Let's

bring in Seth Jarvis because he does that job. Cracks me have when people say, oh, Zach Hyman's in now, that this guy's out, that's out, that's really. They replace that job. That's how it works. Wake up people. The book that Brookie is talking about, Burke's Law, a life in hockey. Which, by the way, when you look at, you know, hockey people that have the home studios, I always look to the bookshelves. Everybody's got that book on there, too. This is like a really, really loved book and one that I encourage everyone to pick up and have a glance at.

Okay. So, I thought of you last night. What game do you think I was watching? Florida. Yep. It's watching Tampa and Florida. And here's what I was thinking. I'm going to tell you a story here.

Marty McSorley told me this story, who, by the way, you never suspended for the biting incident with Eric Lindross and he thanks you to this day. I'm going to get, actually, I'll get you to tell that story a second. So Marty tells me the story. He goes from Pittsburgh to Edmonton, okay? And Dave Somanco is there, King of the Jungle, right? And Marty's a young gunslinger.

He wants to fight every night. And Dave's like, nope, no, we're not fighting tonight, Marty. No, we're not fighting tonight, Marty. No, Marty, we're not doing this every day. And Marty says after about three or four games, he comes into the room and Dave's taping up his wrists. And he says to Marty, Marty, every now and then we must remind them. And tonight, we're going to remind them.

And Marty's like, all right, finally, Dave, we get to do it. And I can't help with thinking, whether it was the way that Matthew Kuchuk went after Nikita Kucheroff that led to the Brandon Hagel fight and then Gustav Forzling and J.J. Mosier, the whole time I'm thinking, these two teams don't play each other again in the regular season, and it's a long shot for the Florida Panthers to make the playoffs. All I'm thinking is, is this the Florida Panthers saying, we're doing this to remind you of who we are.

Hasn't gone well for us this season, but we're not going anywhere, and we'll be right back here next year. Do you think that was Florida reminding Tampa that we're not going anywhere? I think it was either that or a last ditch. Let's see if we can figure something out, some way out to get back in this. The thing that stuck out to me the most last night was Forgeling in that fight.

He did not want to fight Moser. He gave him about eight chances to walk away, and he said, screw it and beat the snout of him. So I like that far. I like the part that he said, I don't think this kid knows what he's doing. I even give him a break. Then he had enough and said, okay, let's go and smack them.

I like it. Did you? Okay, so in that forestling Mosier fight though, there was one thing, like I don't know, and you're like, we're just look at the left side

of the screen. Like, Moser's going at Forreling and Forreling's like, no, no, no, stop it, get away. And then finally, Forrestling says, all right,

you've kind of bitten off more than you can chew here. And by the end, Moser's down on the ice. And normally that's where a fight ends. You're watching us on YouTube right now. You can see it. And Forzling keeps going.

Now, in the 70s, that was a common occurrence. And I think of Daryl Sittler and Gary Howard, who started the fight standing, went down to their knees, still through punches, and then got back up. But is that not a rule within a rule, a code that when a guy's down, you stop? More of a guideline. It's like Pirates of the Caribbean. Not the Pirates Code. It's like more of a guideline. I think you keep throwing punches in that case.

I think fortunately, you just had enough. He gave the kid four chances to watch. luck away. I think I kept coming and finally said, well, now you're going to pay. I don't care if there's no linesman right here. What's, just as an aside here, before we sort of go through some of the

other news bits from the weekend, we got a really interesting voicemail for you, too. Florida and Tampa, we've marveled at this rivalry now for a few years. And the Florida Panthers have come out on top, went back-to-back Stanley Cups, probably not going to make the

playoffs this year. How do you explain the rise of the Tampa Bay Lightning here? Normally when a team sort of crests and wins their Stanley Cup, it begins that downturn. How have the Tampa Bay Lightning been able to do this? And now, you look around

the Eastern Conference, like sure, Carolina's a tough out too, but for a lot of people, like Tampa's top dog. Is there a sales sacks in Florida? No, sir. Five percent difference right there. So that's part of it. That helps those teams.

but it's all the two GMs involved. Steve Eisenman and then his successor. Julian Breezebaugh. Julian Briswai and then Philly Zito. Those two guys have done a magnificent job but keeping up with the Joneses. It was like that one. L.A. took over.

Dean Lombardi took over in L.A. We won our cup and Dean said, well, not so fast. The same thing. So we're not going to get embarrassed by the ducks. Same thing happened here. Julian Briezweb, embarrassed said Bill Zito, Bill Zito said, no, that's enough.

It's been great for hockey, and fantastic. But make no mistake about it. Their ability to melt the salaries is a big part of it. Yeah, as long, when you're a competitive, I think a lot of it too, because, like, look, Seattle doesn't have state tax either, but still, I think the first thing, you have a competitive team, then all of a sudden, and Brad Marchand talked about this, too, then the no state tax becomes a significant advantage and magnet.

for a lot of a lot of high-end players too. You mentioned L.A. So they were the big newsmaker this week, making the trade for Artemie Panarin. Ken Holland pulls the trigger with Chris Drury, and he gets Panarin, it's Liam Green Tree and a couple of picks, one of which could turn into a second round pick.

First of all, what did you think of this entire process and what did you think about, what do you think now of Artemey Panarin on the Los Angeles Kings? if you saw the game last night against Vegas, you're probably saying to yourself, they need more than just Artemmy Panarin. But we'll get your thoughts first on the deal. I don't like this deal for L.A., for New York.

I'm a big Chris Surrey fan. He played for me. I like him. I respect him. I don't think they got enough here. I think Panarin clearly the best player to retain half his salary. Is that right? Correct.

Got back a player I like but don't love, a couple of middle picks. But was this not, okay, I remember you've done this a couple of times, but it's not with someone of the stature of Artemmy Panarin. Considering that was the only place he was going to wave four, are you not better off getting something than letting him play out the remainder of the season, if indeed they were going to play him at all, and have him walk away for nothing in a dead year for the Rangers? Yes, there's no question he did the best.

he could with the facts. But he seemed to rush it. He seemed to sit him out and then say, you're going to meet that first trade deadline, not the second one. They're taking his time and done a little better, I think. No, I'm not saying it was a terrible deal, because you don't have any hammer here.

The agent has told that there's got to be one team, you have no hammer. There's a couple of teams every year, whether it's, you know, All-Star Break or in this case, Olympic Break, where they don't want to stop playing. the Buffalo Sabres have kind of had a little bit of a speedwobble lately,

but they've been real good. And going into this week, this was probably a team that was like, we don't want to stop playing. We're rolling. We want to keep on going, but this week hasn't been kind to them. But the team that really doesn't want to stop playing now,

can you explain Columbus? Holy smokes, Brian Burke. This looks like it's not apples and oranges. It's chalk and cheese how different this team looks now. They're the beginning of the year. Well, this is a lesson here. It's bad to fire your coach. Generally, the rule means your team is really struggling.

Usually has a dead cat bounce. It doesn't have a big impact on your team, just a dead cat bounce. But in this case, now teams are saying maybe we should change coaches sooner and more often, which is a bad lesson for our owners to learn, a bad, bad lesson. But good for them, good for Columbus. It's been great for the market place. can they do this? Can they get there?

Part of me wants to believe in magic and then my head says, Jeff, like magic is a con. Don't believe in magic. So can they really do this? Can Buffalo get in? Yes. Can Clemiston in?

I'd say no, but I'm starting to doubt that my own beliefs that they cannot and maybe they can. Everyone's hoping they do. It's a great marketplace. fans are great. The ownership's good.

Everything's solid about it. I'm hoping they can do it, but I say no, still. One of the things through all of it, though, and I think you should probably get more Norris love than he already does. Listen, Kel McCar has had a great season. We understand that. But should we be paying way more attention, like Norris Trophy attention to Zach Werenzky?

Yes, and let's get into the conversation. Let's say Zach Werenski does not win the Norris Trophy this year. let's at least get him in the conversation because that's a prelude prelude to a guy winning it. You have to be in the conversation for at least a year before the voters find you out.

But yes, he's been magnificent. I'm not very good team. He is a great player this year. He always has been. He's really stepped up this year. It's amazing. They put Damon Severson with him and he struggled the last couple of years

and now all of a sudden, Damon Severson's having one of his best seasons. Let's get to a voicemail here. This one from our good friend in the chat, General Sorness. Hey, Berkey, General Sornis here. As we near the transaction freeze for the Olympic break and head towards the trading deadline after the Olympics, I was wondering if you could please share with us your thought process on how you evaluated your teams when you were in management as to whether you were going to take the approach of being buyers or sellers at the trading deadline. Thanks, Berkey.

In Vancouver, we're almost always a buyer. In Toronto, we were almost always a seller. But basically, the analysis doesn't change for me. You say, what's our biggest need, one, two, three, our three biggest needs, and then you break them out. Say, number one, let's say we need a scoring winner. then my job, at that point was to go get to not get this player. We need to get Phil Kessel.

We'd say Phil Kessel, then Brian Berkman, Diff Merritt, and the price tag would drop with each one. I would get the first one of those three that I could get at a reasonable price tag. Second need of a puck-moving defense put down the top three, go after them in sequence and price. Not wait. I think it's a real foolish thing to wait until the end of the season for the trade deadline.

He had a player. We're looking for a player type. So then that becomes, it's funny, we just had the conversation about the Columbus Blue Jackets. And I'll think about a team like the St. Louis Blues. Like, you've seen Doug Armstrong close to the playoffs or maybe like right there in the playoffs at trade deadline

and decide we don't have the team for this. And next thing, you know, Dave Backus is traded. Next thing, you know, Stasney's in Winnipeg. So we've seen that as well. if you're close, and I guess this would go team to team to team, if you're close to a playoff spot at trade deadline, is that where the owner wants to get a hand on the wheel? It was not a problem for me generally

because I told my owner, I interviewed for the job. I said, look, there's two hands on the goddamn steering wheel. They're both mine. If I ever looked down, there's three hands on the steering wheel, you got a problem. and they all took the job on that basis, so they hired me on that basis, and largely protected that freedom, that authority.

So it wasn't a big problem. But yeah, that's the real, there's no question that you get impatient. So looking over your shoulder a little bit, hey, are we supposed to stop here? Are we supposed to get up? Burkey, one thing I wanted to mention, It was really nice to see at that Columbus game,

they beat the Hawks for Cobb and seeing Zach Wrenski come out with the American flag for all the fans at Nationwide Arena. It was a really great touch, getting everybody excited for the Olympics. I haven't really asked you, we've asked you about stories and replacement players and team composition and all that. What do you expect at the Olympics next week? What are you looking for? Are there any dark horses?

You've talked, you know, going back 15 years about, about Germany and now all of a sudden it's Dreisdl and Sider and Stutzla and Petrka. It's like, what are you looking for at this year's tournament? Well, I think everyone's focused on two teams. I think that's a big mistake. Canada and the U.S. are clearly the two best. I'm nervous about Sweden. I'm nervous about the two North American teams because the goaltending is a very, right now.

Now, my prediction is, goaltending will not be an issue for either North American team. I don't care what they say right now and neither one of them have a problem with their bullpenning because if I had to pick a team to worry about it would be sweet because their goal opinion

has been fantastic and you've got depth they've got scoring and got special teams and I like them a lot we shall see final word Barry Trots

who's as we all know legendary in Nashville announces this week that he is retiring he is staying on pending a search for his successor as general manager. Do you have, by the way, Caps fans yesterday and during that Washington Capitals game,

the video tribute to Barry Trots, who brought the Washington Capitals to a Stanley Cup in 2018, good on the fans for that standing ovation for Barry Trots in D.C. yesterday. Yeah, it was good on them. I agree. And David Boyle and Barry Trots, what a pair. The guy that Francis for so long. with such patience and just keep getting better and better.

They didn't want it in Nashville, but they finally won it for Barry in Washington. Good for Barry Trout. If he's retired and enjoy his life a little bit, he's earned it. Good for him. Sure has. And you've earned it too.

Earned your weekend. And next time we talk, we'll be talking about the Olympics, and we're all looking forward to our. Bricky, thanks for taking it outside today. Thanks, yeah. Worked out. Great.

Brian Burke will be back on Wednesday. stay here on the program.