The event was organized to promote author Jason Farris’s book Moves: NHL GMs Tell How Winners Are Built — in which Burke is featured — explores the philosophies, strategies, and stories of some of hockey’s most influential wheelers and dealers.

The Benefits of Big Blue

For those that are not familiar, Big Blue is a term Burke uses to refer to the Maple Leafs because of the competitive edge they enjoy over other teams due to their wealthy ownership. While teams are limited by the League’s salary cap to gain an edge by grossly overspending opponents on the ice, using their financial muscle can still play an important role in building a winner on the ice.

As can be seen in the video below, Burke describes two examples: one, taking losses on their AHL minor league team to attract free agents such as Tyler Bozak, Marcel Mueller, and Jonas Gustavsson, and, two, spending money on hiring talent for the front office.

Past Trades

But even the smartest men in hockey sometimes make mistakes. Sean Fitz-Gerald of the National Post, who covered the event at Rotman, quotes Burke as saying that making good trades is a numbers game.

The good news is, if you make enough good trades, people forget about the horses— trades that you’ve made. People ask me, ‘what’s the worst trade you’ve made?’ And I would have to think hard about that, but I could tell you a couple real bad ones.

The key, however, is knowing when you made a mistake and fixing it.

A second-round pick in Vancouver for Vadim Sharifijanov. That’s right. Everyone’s going, ‘who?’ Exactly. That’s pretty good evidence. I just told you it’s a bad trade. Now, it’s a bad trade. We overrated this player, we overpaid for him, but we fixed it. Right away, we said, ‘OK, we’re wrong.’ We got rid of the guy, put someone in the lineup who could help us more. We never recovered from that particular mistake, but we didn’t dwell on it and say, ‘maybe he’ll turn into a player.

That doesn’t mean the mistakes will stop.

We traded Donald Brashear for Jan Hlavac and a pick. Jan Hlavac. Exactly. Now, Jan Hlavac is a great kid; actually played a couple hundred NHL games, but didn’t work out in Vancouver. But we flipped Jan Hlavac for Marek Malik, who played six years for us and was Ed Jovanovski’s defence partner. A 6-foot-6 defenceman taken in the ’93 draft, one round after Chris Pronger… so we fixed the mistake.

Dealing with other General Managers

Being able to pull off successful trades depends on the relationships that general managers develop with their colleagues. A certain amount of honor has to exist between them, otherwise trust is lost.

Burke describes an incident involving he and New York Rangers general manager Glen Sather better explains that.

We traded — I want to say in 2005 — Sandis Ozolinsh to the New York Rangers at the deadline for, I think, a third-round pick. And he was battling alcohol issues. He’d been sober with us, stayed sober with the Rangers and then, the night after they were eliminated in the playoffs, he was arrested on a DUI in Westchester County. Glen Sather, was the GM in New York, called me. He said, ‘I thought you said this kid was sober.’ I said, ‘Well, he was here, he was in counseling.’ And then, it turns out the kid’s got microfractures in his knee, and he needs surgery. Well, we didn’t know about the microfractures, but Slats sends me a bill for $65,000 for the surgery from this doctor in Vail. I sent it back to him. I said, ‘I’m not paying this. I didn’t know he was hurt.’

Fast forward to 2009 when Burke and Sather get together on a deal that brought defenseman Erik Reitz to Toronto.

We knew he was injured, but Slats said, ‘he’s in a walking cast, he’s fine.’ And so, he gets off the plane and he’s got a fractured tibia and he’s about 24 pounds overweight because he hasn’t been able to skate. We owed him about $50,000 in salary for the rest of the year. So I called Slats, I said, ‘walking cast my ass, this guy’s a cripple and he’s fat.’

Unlike Burke back in 2005, Sather was willing to make amends for misleading Burke.

Slats said, ‘put him on a plane.’ He was going to take him back, to honour his word. I said, ‘you know what? You’re going to find out that there is some honour in the game. You think I owe you $60,000 from earlier, you’re going to collect it now. We’re going to keep the kid. And Erik Reitz is actually a good kid. It wasn’t his fault. So there is some honour in the game — but I still took [Sather] for $20,000 on the differential.

Being a Leader

But while honor still has a place in hockey’s front offices, Burke says a certain degree of ruthlessness is required to do his job at the NHL level.

I’ve done more good things for my players over time than I have ruthless things, but I will do what’s necessary to make our team better. If that’s hard on a family, I’m still going to do it. The average person doesn’t have that. It’s a lonely side of the business. I think the average person in North America wants very little to do with leadership because of the loneliness of the role, because of the difficulties of the decisions. I think the average person wants to be competently and honestly led, rather than driving the bus. They wouldn’t mind being in the front seat making suggestions, but they don’t want the wheel — because, goddamnit, it’s too lonely.

If there’s one thing you can always count on Burke to do, it’s not shy away from being the one behind the wheel, making the tough decisions. And then standing by them on matter what the outcome.