The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Brian Burke on the Brendan Shanahan Era in Toronto

Episode Date: May 24, 2025

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Podcast, we're doing it. So I've got a kid. Shocker, I'm gay. Here's what happens with open relationship. What about us scream 60 minutes? Alright, let's welcome Atlanta, Chase, Tara, Dan to Left on Red. Hi, Jeff Merrick here. their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com. Hi, Jeff Merrick here. Let me tell you about Cozy. Everyday home furnishings made easy. Cozy is modern, built for real life, practical and designed to make your day to day feel a little lighter. You need to refresh your living room? Cozy makes it simple. Shopping for furniture shouldn't feel like a chore.

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Visit Cozy.ca, C-O-Z-E-Y.ca, the home of possibilities made easy. Our feature on Friday's here on the program, no stranger to this program or other programs or the NHL at large. in this segment we remind you is a presentation of Budweiser. Budweiser is encouraging BUDs to make time for playoffs, not excuses. Every goal, every check, every win is better enjoyed with your BUDs. Phone a BUD, text a BUD, ping a BUD and call out their excuses for

bailing on the playoffs. After all, the playoffs are the most wonderful time of the year. Make them count. When it's springtime, it's go time. And it's go time for us, time for us to go to our good friend Brian Burke who joins us here each and every Friday. Burke, how are you and where are you today? I'm on my farm in Waynefleet, Jeff.

How are you? I'm doing well, pal. Great to see and hear from you again. It's been a very leafy week. Toronto, by the way, before we go anywhere, I gotta hand it to you. Friday, I thought this was the Maple Leafs winding their wristwatch on the way to the electric chair. Doesn't matter, they're going to sunrise, and you're like, they're gonna win game six, Jeff.

They're gonna win game six and this thing's going to a game seven and you were 100% right. We'll get to game seven in a couple of moments. But if you would like to do a victory lap, we'll let you do one here early on the program. Oh thanks, I'm good. I don't need to do a victory lap. I was happy to see the team when they came.

Yeah. And then it all came crumbling down on Sunday as we saw. Before we get into the specifics of Shanahan era, the Keith Peli press conference, what's next? You're very close with and always have been with Brad Treliving. I wanna get your thoughts there. Can you give us a sense of what it is like

managing in Toronto? Like, let's go really big picture here because nobody knows this like you do. What is like, what is it like day to day in the biggest fishbowl in the NHL? Well, I think it's nonstop. The pressure that you feel, the phone calls you get, people reminding you about this, people calling you for favors you get people reminding you about this People calling you for favors a cop calling you about getting to a game. It's non-stop 24-7, but I think it's also

Enables you to do so much good work and charity stuff It's not it's not all bad. I think the key is to tune it out. Yeah Have very small ears if you want to work in Toronto, you have to tune that out. All the white noise you have to tune out. I think the successful teams do that. It's funny why I heard one of them, someone being interviewed, said there's really so much pressure, like what Matthew Kachuck said, there's so much pressure on the leafs, the poor leafs. and someone came on the air and said that's what they're worried about that they should go somewhere else. It's really a privilege that comes with the downside is yeah you go to the grocery store you get hounded the whole

time so you don't go to the grocery store you have you have someone in sick harder someone ringing your groceries but if you let the people, if you let it dominate you, then they can, they can ruin your life. I mean, listen, it is, and I've always made the point, if you go back and look at the 1967 team that won the Stanley Cup, like the lion's share of all those players that were in the hockey hall of fame.

Like when you are successful in Toronto, you set yourself up like forever. Really? I mean, there's, they still in Doug Gilmore and Wendell Clark made it to the conference final against the Los Angeles Kings and they're still revered as legends. When you have success in Toronto, look at Matt Sundeen on his way to the Hall of Fame too. Um, when you have success in Toronto, it follows you forever. Well, not just that.

I said this at my press conference. If we win a cup in, in Toronto, when I'm the GM, they're going to name schools after me, not streets, schools. They'd be immortalizing. It would be an immortal honor to win a cup after 1967 with the Leafs. So it's truly an honor. I think it outweighs the difficulties of doing the job. Yes, you get picked to death, psyching out to death. Sure. But I think if you pay the attention

that you're a fool. It's got to be so hard though, Berkey. I'll be honest with you, you talk about, and I've heard you say this before, you need to tune it out, have smaller ears, but Like you talk about, and I've heard you say this before, like you need to tune it out, have smaller ears, but like you're swimming in it when you're in Toronto. Like, I don't know that you can. Only if you read it. Every once in a while, my girlfriend will call me about something. She'll say, you can't believe what this guy just said about you. And I'm like, I could care less.

I've given my whole life to, Pat Quinn taught me that lesson. During my first year in Vancouver, 1987, 88, Tony Gallagher wrote something that really hurt my feelings. I was really sour. And Pat called me in and said, you've got to stop this. You got to get over this. You have to ignore it. You got to make a promise to me today.

Your life will be so much better. He was right. Just tune it out. And your life is so much better. He was right. Just tune it out. Your life is so much better. So I thank Pat for that. So when you look at this edition of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and this is the, uh, the end of the Brendan Shanahan era.

Um, and, and the end of the, the Shanna plan, how will, like, what are the things that will stand out for you? Because there were a lot of names in here. There was certainly Shanahan and Marner and Matthews and Nylander, the players, et cetera. And Dubas and Lou and like Hunter, like a lot of names have gone through here under Brendan

Shanahan. What are the things that you'll pull out of this era? All nine straight years in the playoffs. I think Brendan Shanahan should be remembered reverentially in Toronto. He's a Hall of Famer. He's a good guy. His son graduated from Boston College this weekend, which is cool. I think he's a good man and he's done a good job. He'll be remembered well. He'll be remembered as a guy who couldn't get over the hump, but that's true of every team that's been there since 67,

including me. He got a lot farther along than I did. So I think people remember Brennan fondly and With respect as they should I don't think he's done. I think he's gonna resurface here pretty quickly Yeah, I think people will say he didn't get it done, but he made a lot of the good things happen You know, it must be you know, I would always say this about the Blue Jays You know for the longest time playing in, it must be, you know, I would always say this about the Blue Jays, you know, for the longest time playing in the AL East when the, you know, the Yankees were a juggernaut and the Boston Red Sox

were a juggernaut and I'd always say, every now and then the Jays would have a decent season. This is in like the, the 1980s, but they were in a division of death, like AL East was, it was a, and then Tigers were really good too and they won World Series. Not that they will ever use it as an excuse, but you look at how the Florida Panthers are going through the Carolina hurricanes right now. Is there a part of the Maple Leafs organization

that looks at that and says, we were right there. We were right there to knock off the Florida Panthers. Obviously we let them get back up off the mats, but is that any consolation for this Toronto team? No, I think it shows that the Toronto team wasn't ready to do that. It was ready to do that. Obviously, we let them get back up off the mat, but is that any consolation for this Toronto team?

No, I think it shows that the Toronto team wasn't ready to do this. They forced the game seven good on them. Winning game six was amazing, but they forced the game seven with an opponent that should have steamrolled them and took the first two games to wake up. Toronto got two free games out of that series. So to me, look at what's happening here. See, I don't rate my teams based on are they this or are they that. I say are they in the top five?

If they're in the top five, then they have a chance. If they're not, they're not. I don't think they were. I don't think they were. I don't think they were in the tough time. Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. It's the Adam, Wild, and Jack show. Podcast, we're doing it. So I've got a kid.

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Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com. How do you feel the Maple Leafs, there's so much is made up obviously on the core four. And the thing that I keep going back to is, put yourself in that draft position. Were you not taking Matthew's first overall? Like were you not doing that? Well, first off, Jeff, hang on one sec. He had to go back.

It was no accident that they picked first. They picked Austin Mathis and Mitch Marner. That was part of the plan. Oh yeah. But let's not lose sight of the fact that they tanked to get those two players, which is fine. It's within the rules, but let's not lose sight of that fact. So that's one thing. Then you get the core four. They locked them up. They gave out way too many, no trades and no moves. They gave out too much money. They locked up all four in advance.

It was a doom tactic. I said it at the time. I called it out in real time on sports. And I said, they should let him leave. And there you go. Now he's turning to a really good player. I like what he brings to the team, but they've had too much money tied up

in one spot of similar players. That criticism cannot go unremarked or unnoticed. You know, that's one of the points that I've been trying to pound here a little while, for the last little while, and that is, as great as all these players are individually, they're more similar than they are different You know, like you've always talked about, you know, we have our like pick and shovel guys We have our skill guys all of it

These guys were splitting out in real time Jeff. This is a problem It's really easy to say now they had four similar players in any diversity This was called out in real time at that time I hate to say I told you so but I told you so they tied up too much money and similar players They had too much money tied up and guys that couldn't compete in all areas And so they're stuck with what they're stuck with They're finally getting to rectify it now. The no trades and no moves really hampered this whole thing,

really made it twice as hard as it would have had to be otherwise. But they're gonna finally sort it out now. How do you, how do they, I mean, this is like a Gordian knot in a lot of ways that you have to unravel. If you're Brad for a living and you've known Brad for a long time, what does he do here?

Like what does Brad Treleving do here? I mean, he started to address the defense situation, but okay, so what's next steps? Okay, so Brad Treleving came here a year ago or two years ago. Last year and just in the last year, he added Carlo, he added Tana. He's upgraded the defense. They've gotten bigger and tougher. Lorenz. They've gotten, it's a better team. It's a much better team. So you look incrementally and say, well, it's another failure.

You can't tack Brad's little, his tenure onto Shani's tenure. As in the last two years, here's what he's done. So I think he's made dramatic improvement. The caps going up. They'll solve all this stuff. Now you got to figure out what to do with Mitch. Mitch wants to sign again. You want him back. If not, let him go. Make a deal if you can. Get something for him. If not, take the 13 million back and spend it somewhere else. You don't have to get something back for Mitch Martin. It'd be nice, but thanks to people who went before Brad,

too many no trades, too many restrictions. And so if you get something for him, great, if not, move on. You know, one of the things that anyone that's followed Brad Trilliving and his career is, in all the deals that he makes, he always tries to get a defenseman, right? Like he makes the Hubert O. Kachak deal as a defenseman attach.

Like wherever Brad Treleving has gone, like he's always put a premium on the back end. And I don't, I don't get the feeling, Berkey, even though like everybody's wrapped up and the numbers are all there, I still don't get the feeling that he's done. I really don't. Like I think that he would move bodies still

to improve that backend. Where do you think he got that from? I don't know. Maybe the gentleman I'm talking to right now. Yeah, no, that's not right. Brad learned a few things at my knee. One of them was you always get an offense, but Bob Murray taught me that. Pat Quinn taught me that. We always got an offense in the deal if we could. The centerpiece of every deal I ever made

was a defenseman, except the twins. I was gonna say, weren't you the guy that did the twins deal? My memory's a little foggy there. Was that you? I thought one of them would be a defenseman. You're trying to make one of them a defenseman, yeah. I get it, I'm Brian Burke.

I get a defenseman every deal. Henrik, I hate to break the news to you, but you're playing D, learn how to block shots. What do you make of the idea? Keith Pelly today indicating that, look, I had dinner with Craig Barube, he's gonna have more, he's gonna have more say in what we do around here. For some people, the idea that fiddlers fiddle and dancers dance.

So your coach should just coach and your manager should manage and ownership should do ownership thing. What do you make of the idea of the coach having more power day to day? I don't think it's a bad thing as long as Craig Berube understands who the boss is. I would tell you those meetings, I would choreograph those meetings if I were in charge. I'd say, all right, you're meeting with Keith Pelly, here's what we're going to talk about. I choreograph the meetings. No, I think Keith Pelly is a real good guy, really independent. I think he can listen to Brad and listen to Craig independently and make up his own mind.

They're not going to get off the page anyway. It's suicide for keeping it off the page. So Keith Kelly's back and let him get off the page. Uh, off the Toronto Meet belief page. And I'll be talking to Jonah Segal from the Athletic coming up here in a couple of moments. Um, let me ask you about the Florida Panthers a little bit more here. You know, one of the things that I, I wonder about now is like, for example, we can see the

path here, obviously for the Panthers to the Stanley Cup and we could see the Panthers winning the Stanley Cup again, going back to back in the salary cap era is one of the hardest things you could do, maybe the hardest thing that you can do. It's only a matter of time, as you know, Berkey, before teams start calling and people start to get lured away.

Like I wonder about Sylvain Lefebvre, defensive coach for the Tampa Bay Lightning. What he's done with that blue line has been remarkable. I wonder about Paul Kripelka, the assistant general manager, a former agent, as you all know, as Belzito was a former agent as well, AGM. He's been there as you talk about learning at the knee. He's been there to watch all of this. We've wondered about Rick Dudley and the Buffalo Sabres

as a senior advisor, et cetera, et cetera. I guess it's a nice problem to have because it means you're winning cups, but you start to see, Berkey, maybe other teams starting to think they seem to have the formula. Why don't we bring in some of their people here? Well, it's a monkey Sea, Monkey Duke league. It's a copycat land.

So yeah, that's been the same thing happened to me. I got a chance to go to Hartford because Pat Quinn had turned around the Vancouver Canucks. I was part of that success. I got to ride his coattails and go get a chance to work in Hartford. So that's good organization, spin off good people. That's a byproduct of team success. It's true in baseball, true in basketball, true in hockey, true in football. So that's an inevitable side byproduct of winning. You know, when I look at the Florida Panthers and we're just having the conversation about

the Maple Leafs, I was talking about this earlier and there's some, you know, Florida Panthers fans that I'm eating, think that I'm eating space cake on this one, but I'll lob it your way and see what happens. If I'm the Maple Leafs, I'm looking for a second line center, at least one top four winger, and maybe a first pairing defenseman, probably a first pairing defenseman. I think you satisfy all that with three free agents from the Florida Panthers.

Bennett, Marchand, Ekblad. I don't know what they'll get there, but would you agree or disagree that if you're Brad True Living and you got a shopping basket, those are the three you want at the end of the day. I think I love Marchand. Let's start with him. But he's 37 years old. He does a three-year deal before you when he's done. Now he's still an effective player. He's playing on the third line in Florida.

So that's still a useful position. He's important. He's scoring goals. He's making plays. He's obnoxious. He's ugly. I mean mean not in the literal sense. I mean plays ugly Brad Marshawn knows me. He knows that never I don't you mean he's ugly as a hockey player That's a that's a compliment. So I think that one be a stretch at 37 But maybe if it's a two-year deal, maybe we'll see I think boss is gonna try hard to bring him back myself We'll see. I think Boston's going to try hard to bring him back myself. Aaron Echolad, it's pretty early to talk about that. Sam Bennett, everyone and their dog is going to try to sign Sam Bennett. But keep in mind, you want to sign him in Toronto, it's a million bucks on top of whatever you're going to pay him in Florida

because of the tax differential. Yeah. To say nothing, I've never got the sense that, like there's, you know this, Brian, we've talked about this before. There are some players that just thrive in a market like Toronto, and there are others that look at it and say, not interested.

Like I know you'll never tell me the names, although I'll keep asking you. But listen, you know, and you've mentioned this before. People will be surprised at how many Canadian hockey players have Canadian teams on the do not trade list. Uh, I'll name names. I mean, I'll have to think about it. I'll do it on a different show. Okay.

The fact of the matter is you get to, I used to put eight names on a no trade list. That was my maximum. I'd say, okay, I'm not going to give you a full no trade, but I'll put eight teams you can give me to put out a no fly zone. You can't be traded to one of eight teams. All seven Canadian teams were on most of those lists, including like Mark T. Ordano,

who was my captain in Calgary, great guy. But I called him and I said, how come you're putting Canadian teams on here? He said, that's what my agent told me to do, but it's because of the tax differential. So I get it. Not mad about it, but my favorite cities to work were Canadian cities. I loved living and working in Calgary. I love living and working in Toronto.

I love living and working in Vancouver. I go back there at any one of them in Arktby. But the fact of the matter is the no trade list that he's put in, the Canadian teams are almost all on that list. Right. All right, so we'll do seven days from now, the Berkey expose on Canadian hockey players that are saying no to their home country.

Let me ask you about Edmonton and Dallas. Game two is tonight. It's weird, I looked at that game, Brian, and I said, I didn't watch one hockey game, I watched two. The first hockey game I watched was 40 minutes long, and that was Edmonton tilting the rank against Dallas. It was puck on a string, it was do whatever we want. And then I looked at the third period,

said this is a totally different game, penalty after penalty by the Edmonton Oilers, power play goal after power play goal for the Dallas Stars, heroic comeback by Dallas, give them full marks, and Autinger was really good to only keep it at three to one heading into the third period. If I'm Edmonton, I'm not panicked. If I'm the Edmonton Oilers, I'm still cool.

We just won two out of three periods from Dallas and we have a loss at home. How do you see Edmonton right now? Just like that. Those were careless, stupid penalties. Look at the three penalties they took. Those were, we used to say to our team, we'll kill with the aggressive penalties.

So you take a boarding penalty or high sticking or an elbowing penalty or roughing penalty, you take an boarding penalty or high sticking or an elbowing penalty or roughing penalty, you take an aggressive penalty, we'll kill that penalty. But we're not going to kill the 200 foot away from a trip 200 feet away from the goal. We're not going to lazy high sticks, lazy hooks. We're not going to kill those. That's why they gave them three golden opportunities. One carried over. Even the start of the power play wasn't that lethal. By the time they came out at the start for the third period, they started cracking the whip right away.

They gave them three goals back, they won't do that again. But they were all careless, lazy, and or stupid penalties. Let me ask you about one player specifically from the Edmonton Oilers. And I know this full well that you love this guy. So I know what the answer is going to be. Corey Perry at the end of the game, you know, putting his hands over his head when he was engaged with Lian Bichel, who wanted no part of Corey Perry

and went down and covered up to see, you know, the former first round pick of your Anaheim Ducks, mocking him relentlessly. How did you see Corey Perry in the first game? Well, of the three penalties in the third period, the one that I didn't like or saw as a question was Corey Perry's. So I thought that was mostly glove. He called a high stick on it, but I

thought he got it mostly with his glove, which is a common problem in the NHL. You go to hit a guy, get him mostly glove. It looks like a stick. They call ice sticks. So I didn't like that was the only questionable one. The end of the game, uh, Bischel will gladly fight Corey Perry. He just got tossed down, ended up in a disadvantaged position, covered up.

My prediction is if that kid, the series gets of hand, or the game gets out of hand in game two, Bischel will find an opportunity to fight Corey Perry. I don't think Bischel's afraid of anyone, even though he's Swiss. He's massive. He is a large, strong defenseman. That's probably why the reason they own Jim Neal didn't go out. I know they were looking at Seth Jones. They were considering Seth Jones. They were looking at Rasmus Anderson as well throughout the year, but the emergence of Bischel. This guy's Swiss, but he has a part-time job as a wall. It's one of my favorite Berkey lines. Berkey on that, we'll let you get back to the lovely

Farman-Wayne fleet. You have a wonderful weekend. It's always great catching up. We'll talk in seven days and we'll talk about Canadian players and O'Tray cloths. Great, thanks Jeff. See ya. I can't get out my head, lost all ambitions day to day Guess I can call it a ride I went to the dark man, he tried to give me a little medicine I'm like, nah man, that's fine I'm not against those methods, but I knew

It's me, myself and how this gon' be fixin' my mind I turn on the record I turn down the music I turn on the record I turn on the music It's enough, they're about to get you sometimes, you lose it Helping on the days that went wrong Hey, guys. It's the Adam, Wiley and Jack show. Podcast, we're doing it. So I've got a kid. Shocker, I'm gay. Here's what happens with open relationship.

What about us scream 60 minutes? All right, let's welcome Milana, Chase, Dara, Dan to Left on Red. You have a lot of set times and you're still late for them. Yeah, take care. Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com