Quick Thoughts on the Burmistrov Rumours

Jets fans woke up this morning to some rather concerning reports. Apparently, according to this article by Gary Lawless of the Winnipeg Free Press, Alex Burmistrov wants out of Winnipeg. Gary later tweeted stating that Alex is yet to ask for a trade, but that the current rift between him and Claude Noel is “untenable”. This tells me that it is very unlikely that Burmi will sign back with the team this offseason.

Clearly Burmistrov is not happy. Fans love him, bloggers love him, his old coaches love him and he has been told his entire life how valuable he is and can be. Yet, Clause Noel and the Jets coaching staff (as far as I am aware) have a bit of an issue with the young star. We are all aware of his benching and reduced minutes throughout this last season, and Coach Noel was anything but scared of making sure he got his point across. Unfortunately this has led to a hampered relationship, and with Noel apparently sticking around for at least another year, Burmi has had enough.

If this is all true, the Jets will be losing a young, albeit rushed, talented player. Although he hasn’t been outstanding offensively, he hasn’t exactly been handed a huge opportunity to succeed in that aspect of his game, yet has played well in a third line roll and has very obviously talents with the puck.

Over the past two years Burmi has consistently been a positive corsi player, despite his offensive zone start percentages. In fact, his relative corsi rating of 6.5 ranked him fourth on the team (2nd if you dismiss Anthony Peluso and Patrice Cormier) and he has a general tendency to increase puck possession while with the three players he spends the most time with (Kane, Tangradi & Antropov). Not to mention the increased GF%’s of both Kane and Antropov (admittedly, the numbers for both Tangradi and Antropov look a little screwy to me, but none the less he is an effective line mate).

Should Burmistrov leave town, the team will have a hole at the center position that needs to be filled. As I mentioned earlier this week in my piece on Kyle Wellwood, he could serve well as a third line centerman should Mark Scheifele not be ready, but it does impair the overall team talent level. It also badly limits the Jets’ options for moving Olli Jokinen anytime soon, and puts a LOT more pressure on him to wake up and actually perform next season.

Long term, this could really seal the fate of Coach Noel. The Jets are not an organization that can risk losing young players, and cannot afford to gain any sort of negative image for free agents. Claude has spent time in the AHL and working with young players before so this may just be a rare case, but it is still concerning – especially when you consider how impressed Burmi’s previous coaches and general managers have been. Consider this to be a big, no, a HUGE strike against Claude Noel in TNSE’s books. Should Burmi leave and the Jets struggle again next year, they will look long and hard at this entire situation alongside Chevy when considering Noel’s future employment within the franchise.

This now becomes the big question. If Lawless is correct in his statements that the Jets tried to move him at the deadline and were unable to, that tells me the asking price was too high for many to take seriously. When you look at what some teams spent on sub-par players, this scares me. Ultimately it will come down to what GM’s around the league see in Burmi, as they now hold the position of power and have the option of presenting an offer sheet if need be. In a perfect world, I would be okay with Chevy packaging a second or third round draft pick for this year with Burmi to add another 1st round pick in the draft. Chevy needs to try to sell that Alex is still a talented young player, and that it was nothing more than personality differences that are causing this to occur.

As much as I love Alex Burmistrov and hope that this can all be fixed, it seems as if the harsh reality is coming and he will likely be on his way out. All we can do now is hope Chevy turns this into something positive. I’m already prepared to be completely disappointed.

 

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