Sean Burke Autographed Card

I think I'll be saying this until I retire, but the Edmonton Oilers missed the boat when they chose Ken Holland as their next GM last week, choosing another proven salary cap era mismanager instead of new blood like Sean Burke.

Learning the ropes as an exec with the Phoenix Coyotes, Arizona Coyotes and Montréal Canadiens, Burke also plied his trade as GM of Team Canada at several World Championships and the 2018 Olympics - the one where he scoured the globe trying to put together the best possible team of non-NHLers to try to stop the KHL-playing Russians from winning gold.

The five-time IIHF medalist as a player managed to build a roster that won bronze (better than Finland, Sweden, the United States, Slovakia and the Czech Republic), so one can objectively say he did a fairly decent job.

Former goalies are showing they have an eye for talent and management, as the likes of Burke, Ron Hextall (rebuilding the Philadelphia Flyers post-Paul Holmgren), Holland (three Stanley Cups in the pre-cap era) and, to a lesser extent, Patrick Roy (Memorial Cup) and Garth Snow (rebuilding the New York Islanders post-Mike Milbury) have all shown to be able to build decent rosters pretty much from scratch.

I know if I owned a team in, say, Seattle, I'd take a serious look at him to build my team.

As many of you know, Burke was impactful to me as a young goalie in the late 1980s. His exploits with the Canadian National Team and the New Jersey Devils set an example that many Canadian goalies wanted to follow. Sure, Roy was the reason I donned the pads in the first place, but the fact that even in Montréal he was seen as an unattainable God-like figure meant a guy like Burke - who participated in CHL/Team Canada clinics and moved around a lot by changing teams often - was more present, in a way.

And he showed that one didn't have to be a record-setting Conn Smythe winner to be an All-Star and a Hart and Vezina candidate. These days, my favourite goalies are Jaroslav Halak, Ben Bishop, Corey Crawford and Marc-André Fleury, but in the 1980s and 1990s, it was Roy, Burke and, a peg below, Stéphane Fiset. No one else came close.

Here is the 6'4" Burke in the uniform that, to me, best represents the first third of his nearly 20-year career, the Devils' red-and-green classic, on card #66 from Upper Deck's 1990-91 Series 1 set:

He signed it in blue sharpie in one of his few trips to Montréal in the past couple of years.

Sean Burke Autograph Card

One bit of news that flew under the radar this summer concerns one of my favourite goalies growing up, Sean Burke, who was added to the Montréal Canadiens' scouting staff, most specifically for the West. He will therefore be able to remain based in Arizona, where his wife and kids are.

The Habs now have the two best goalie coaches in the business of the last decade working for them; all that's left for them is to hire Patrick Roy as coach and GM and they'd have the complete trifecta...

I've written about Burke a lot on this blog before, so I don't want to repeat myself too much, but the three-time Vezina top-10 finisher has played for Team Canada on numerous occasions, compiling an incredible 2.28 GAA for the men's team, winning the Canada Cup in 1991, gold at the 1997 and 2003 World Championships, and silver at the 1986 World Juniors and 1992 Olympics. The Olympics and 2003 Worlds (1.28 GAA, .955 save percentage) were among the best goaltending performances I've seen; they both probably fit in my all-time top-25.

Here he is during his stint with the Florida Panthers, on card #209 from In The Game's 1998-99 Be A Player set:

It's the gold variant of the autographed insert sub-set, which he signed in thin black sharpie.

Sean Burke Jersey Card

Sean Burke had been quoted as saying he was interested in becoming an NHL General Manager this summer, but the vacant spots have mostly been filled - apart from the three-headed monster over at Toronto Maple Leafs headquarters, which I'm sure he wanted no part in, having to be the lame duck while Kyle Dubas, Brendan Shanahan and Mike Babcock made the actual personnel calls.

Instead, I have a hunch that he may take over for his current boss when Arizona Coyotes GM Don Maloney inevitably gets canned; sure, Maloney has another assistant who has actual GM experience, but that man is Darcy Regier, who turned the Buffalo Sabres into a joke and cut corners in their scouting and drafting departments large enough that years of futility are still years away from bearing any fruit.

The ideal job for him would have been with the Edmonton Oilers, in my opinion. He knows the Western Conference extremely well, having been with the Coyotes in either a coaching or managerial role since 2008. He's also the goaltending coach who ''made'' #1s out of Ilya Bryzgalov, Mike Smith and Devan Dubnyk, and made Chad Johnson (1.21 GAA, .954 save percentage, undefeated in 4 games with 1 shutout), Jason LaBarbera (2.64 GAA and .918 save percentage over 4 seasons), Curtis McElhinney (1.64 GAA and .944 save percentage), Matt Climie (1.88 and .938), and Al Montoya (2.08 and .925) look the part - and the Oilers kind of need an eye for goaltending, and someone who can provide valuable tips.

In today's NHL, Burke is that guy, ahead of even Patrick Roy.

So I guess it's fitting that I feature him as a member of the Phoenix Coyotes, with this card from Pacific's 2000-01 Private Stock Titanium Draft Day set (card #75 of the Authentic Game-Worn Jersey sub-set, mentioning he was drafted by the New Jersey Devils in the second round in 1985):

I'm particularly fond of the back, which specifies that the jersey swatch is from a Coyotes game in 1999-2000; it's also numbered 134/1010.

I've mentioned it before, but Burke was one of my favourite goalies growing up. Roy was the unattainable God, and Burke was the best underdog. Roy may have his (record) three Conn Smythes, and his Vezinas (while Burke has one nomination and three top-10 finishes), but Burke has an Olympic medal (silver, 1992) with Team Canada.

Sean Burke: 7 Autographed Items (Part 1)

Second post in a row featuring an ex-NHLer and current goalie coach - this time the man who made the Phoenix Coyotes a powerhouse in front of the net and got Mike Smith to (finally) play up to his potential: Sean Burke.

From the very start, Burke was widely heralded as a star-in-the-making, from single-handedly leading Canada to a silver medal at the 1986 World Juniors to helping an amateur-led Canada to 4th place at the 1988 Calgary Olympics behind professional-laden teams USSR (Soviet Union), Finland and Sweden. He then went on to play 11 games with the New Jersey Devils, lead them to the playoffs for the first time, beat powerhouses New York Islanders and Washington Capitals in the first two rounds of the playoffs only to lose to the Boston Bruins in 7 games in the Prince-Of-Wales Conference finals.The following season, while still qualifying as a rookie, he was invited to the All Star Game - the first ever rookie goalie to do so.

During this time - the first Olympics I watched from end to end, my budding passion for the sport both as a fan and a goaltender - my idol was Patrick Roy, like most kids my age. But because Roy was widely recognized as the best goalie in the world at that time, he was unattainable for kids like me; even waiting in line at events to get an autograph of Roy seemed impossible, because he attracted crowds so big the odds were so massively against it happening. At that time, Olympic hero Burke graced the cover of Hockey Today, which Hockey Canada gave all of the players in my area for free, for some reason:

Just like that, Burke made his way on my teenage wall, alongside Roy, Guns N' Roses, Lita Ford and N.W.A., and would later be joined there by Pearl Jam and topless women.

And while my butterfly style was very Roy-inspired, my physical stature was promising to near that of Burke, who stood at 6'4'' and weighed in over 200 pounds (usually close to 210). And it seemed Burke was cited more often as a spokesperson for Hockey Canada than Roy, which made him closer to us kids than Roy, despite his playing in the U.S.

Another thing that made Burke ''realer'' than Roy was that Roy had his pads tailor-made by the Habs' trainer, who made his own, ''house'' brand Lefebvre, so kids who weren't rich could never wear the same equipment as his; Burke was all about Brian's, and so was I.

So I sent Burke a long, heart-felt fan letter and the 6 following cards on March 5th, 2012, and got all of them back, signed in blue sharpie, on Friday the 13th (of April, 2012) - with half of them personalized ''To Sebastian''; he even signed one of the index cards I sent in for protection, personalizing it, and adding me ''Best Wishes'', which may have made my year:

Now onto the cards, starting with his second year card from his Devils' days, where he kind of looks like Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network:

It's from Topps' 1989-90 O-Pee-Chee set (card #92). His rookie card also showed him without a helmet... someone at Topps must have found him cute!

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Sean Burke: 7 Autographed Items (Part 2)

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The greedy Devils got into a nasty contract dispute with Burke, which made him sit out the 1991-92 season, during which he went back to Team Canada and played in the 1992 Olympics, winning a silver medal. The Devils then sent his rights to the Hartford Whalers with Eric Weinrich for Bobby Holik and Jay Pandolfo. The next 3 cards are of Burke as a Whaler:

Top-left, showing him wearing the Whalers' white (home) jersey is card #127 in Pinnacle Brands' 1994-95 Select set; top-right is a beauty, from the 1995-96 Parkhurst International set (card #96) by Parkhurst, which was then a stand-alone brand after Pro Set went bankrupt and Upper Deck reneged on their distribution deal. The card at the bottom is from Fleer/Skybox's 1996-97 Skybox Impact set (card #52), with a nice view of the away jersey from the back.

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Sean Burke: 7 Autographed Items (Part 3)

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After the Whalers, Burke was wrongly viewed as having peaked and played for 5 teams in 6 seasons before settling in with the Phoenix Coyotes and regaining his All Star form, going to mid-season classic twice again, and getting nominated for both the Hart and Vezina trophies.

After Phoenix, he went to the Philadelphia Flyers for a second stint there, then the Tampa Bay Lightning and Los Angeles Kings. My final two cards are from the Lightning:

Both were manufactured by Upper Deck, the one on the left (slightly smudged) being from the 2005-06 SP Authentic set (card #91), while the one on the right is from the 2006-07 Victory set (card #179). Both sets come back every year in similar designs, which are simple yet pretty.