Patience is a virtue.
In Brian Burke’s world, that virtue gets in the way of business – the business of winning National Hockey League games.
So when the Calgary Flames hockey-operations president ran out of patience in his third month on the job, general manager Jay Feaster and assistant John Weisbrod took the business end of Burke’s angst.
Burke let the Flames front-office dyad go Dec. 12 in a bid to jolt the losing club (13-16-5) from its mediocrity. The Flames are currently skating towards a fifth-straight, playoff-free season.
Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess. Burke insists he does not want to be general manager and is already contacting candidates for the position.
But those who’ve seen Burke blockbuster prequels in NHL cities like Vancouver, Anaheim and Toronto know this is just the beginning.
Flames head coach Bob Hartley? Keep your parachute handy. (Burke’s on the record saying Calgary’s coaching staff remains intact until season’s end; four short months away.)
First-round draft pick Sven Baertschi? Here’s a warm bus seat in Abbotsford.
Veteran NHLer Matt Stajan? Burke’s already shown you what it’s like to be a “movable asset.”
High-skills under-performer Mikael Backlund? Have a suitcase on standby. If you’re fortunate, Burkie might save you the limo fare and give you a lift to the airport. He’s thoughtful that way.
Flames rookie Sean Monahan? You get the immunity necklace – as long as you keep lighting lamps.
Whomever has been tending the Flames net this season? Uh, whatever. Replacing Miikka Kiprusoff with a rookie tandem was bound to hurt. Unless, of course, that rookie goalie is Los Angeles Kings’ Martin Jones.
You see, Calgary’s hockey boss and “interim” GM likes to look in the mirror and see his hockey team glaring back at him in all its surly impatience. He hasn’t seen that from the Flames this season and wants it. Now. Players unable to meet those expectations will be shopped. Anyone he hires as GM will share that vision.
So what does that do for a guy like Cochrane’s Coda Gordon, who was drafted by Feaster in the sixth round (165th overall) of the 2012 NHL entry draft?
The 6-foot-1 forward in his third full season with the Western Hockey League’s Swift Current Broncos has 13 goals and 20 assists in 27 games this season and, by all accounts, is progressing well with a team-leading +15 rating. But he has just six penalty minutes and been sidelined since late November with what the Broncos are calling a lower-body injury.
Still, offensive production, honest play and the unchartable “intangibles” have a seat at Burke’s hockey table. When he discovers the Cochrane Minor Hockey product snapped his femur as a bantam in 2008 and came roaring back from what would have crushed any mere mortal’s hockey aspirations, it’ll give the edgy Flames hockey czar pause for a second and perhaps third look at Gordon’s potential.
Who knows? Maybe Burke’s impatience wears off on Gordon, getting him fitted for a Flames sweater ahead of schedule.
After all, In Burke’s world anything is possible if you heed impatience’s call and leave it out on the ice every shift.
