Burke Sticks to the Plan for Ducks

Brian Burke came to Anaheim with a plan and he wasn’t going to scrap it when the Mighty Ducks’ locker-room chemistry was slow to develop or when the rest of the West seemed to be sprinting away.

The Duck general manager says he believes in his team and his strategy as strongly today, with the Ducks in fifth place in the conference, as he did on Jan. 13, when the team hit a low point of eight points out of the eighth and final playoff spot.

“The blueprint that we’re following is not a new blueprint,” he said. “I did the same thing in Vancouver.

“The first thing you have to show your fans is a positive work ethic. I moved Pavel Bure and Alexander Mogilny and Mark Messier, although with Messier it wasn’t a question of his work ethic but that we couldn’t afford him.

“We’ve seen this movie before. It’s just what you need to do to turn a team around. You can’t change the process. You keep the kids, you get a good work ethic and a system that works.”

Burke’s renovations are the foundation of the Ducks’ rise through a tightly clustered pack. They’re 29-10-8 since Thanksgiving; since the day they dropped eight points out of a playoff spot, they’re 18-5-5. They’ve won six straight and nine of 10. They’re 10-1-1 in their last 12, 12-2-1 in their last 15 and 16-4-2 in their last 22.

“People say, ‘You’re on a hot streak,’ but look at our record for the past few months,” Burke said. “We’re just a secret outside Orange County.”

Burke’s splashiest move last summer was signing Scott Niedermayer, the kind of puck-moving defenseman essential to any team’s success. By exiling Sergei Fedorov to Columbus after telling the Russian forward he wouldn’t be moved, and by dealing an unhappy Petr Sykora to New York, Burke asserted his control, cleared payroll space, and created opportunities for Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf.

He added muscle by acquiring defenseman Francois Beauchemin, one of the best but least-heralded trades this season, dealt the valiant but slow Keith Carney for a prospect and a draft pick, and handed off Sandis Ozolinsh’s defensive liabilities to the Rangers. It fit into his vision for a tough team with a blue-collar coach, Randy Carlyle, who had coached the Canucks’ top minor-league team.

“It never gets too rough for me,” Burke said. “Randy and I have a lot in common: we both hate to lose and we like it physical.”

Perhaps his riskiest move was signing Teemu Selanne after the 35-year-old winger had a 16-goal season and knee surgery. Selanne has brought speed and finishing skills and has 33 goals and 74 points, including four goals and 12 points in the last five games.

“He deserves a lot of credit,” Burke said. “It wasn’t easy for him to come back. He worked his tail off.”

Andy McDonald, enjoying a career season with 28 goals and 68 points, has also been a catalyst. Small but speedy, he’s making a great case for a big payday as a restricted free agent this summer. “He might be the poster boy for the NHL’s new rules,” Burke said. “Nobody in the conference has benefited more, and he’s a great kid. He’s going to get a big raise, and I don’t mind paying it.”

All of those players -- and more -- have contributed to a surge that Burke says is a logical upward trajectory, not a hot streak.

“The coaches are doing a good job and the players are playing their butts off, but we still have nothing to brag about,” Burke said. “I’ve used this analogy before: as a general manager, I’ve got to watch the whole movie. The media takes snapshots. I’ve got to stick with the blueprint, regardless of whether we’re having temporary success or failure.”

Of course, his blueprint didn’t bring the Canucks a Stanley Cup when he was their boss. However, the Ducks’ goaltending is better than the Canucks’ was and the Ducks have a strong stream of young talent from Bryan Murray’s term as GM. Burke has done a lot of things right so far, but the Ducks must back him up by making the playoffs and making an impact.

He knows it. “The crowds have responded and we’re virtually sold out,” he said. “Would I like better placement in the newspaper? Sure. I want the front page. Do I like it when an article on USC spring football is bigger than our big wins? No, but we’re stuck with that.

“There are two NBA teams here, two NHL teams, two Major League Baseball teams and the NFL is coming. That’s our lot in life and we can’t complain about that. We just have to win. If we do, we’ll make a strong impression here.”

The next move is theirs.

Labor Pains Continue

The next meeting of the NHL Players’ Assn., in late June or early July, promises to awaken some of the passions stirred during the lockout.

One topic to be discussed is whether to raise the salary cap from $39 million this season to perhaps $46 million or take a lower cap and a higher minimum. A high cap, some players fear, would lead to higher escrow payments. Players are guaranteed 54% of league revenues but must pay a portion of their salaries into an escrow account to be sure that percentage is met.

If salaries consume a greater percentage of revenues, the league will keep a portion of the escrow money; if salaries are below 54% of revenues, players will get money back, as will happen this season because revenues have been healthier than projected. The escrow provision was one of the most controversial and least understood in the collective bargaining agreement.

Player representatives and NHLPA Executive Director Ted Saskin couldn’t reach a consensus on the cap during a recent conference call and agreed to talk again after the season, which could lead to a delay in the traditional July 1 free-agency opening date.

Saskin’s leadership has survived challenges from players who contended that an outside search should have been conducted when he was hired to succeed Bob Gooednow and that the process contradicted the union’s rules. Saskin conducted a second vote, but some teams protested by not returning ballots.

Also, sources said that unknown to players, Saskin made a side agreement during last year’s labor talks with Bill Daly, the NHL’s deputy commissioner, pledging NHLPA assets as a guarantee if escrow didn’t cover the NHL’s share of revenues. Saskin is sure to face questions over that.

Slap Shots

The game misconduct assessed against Ranger forward Ryan Hollweg last week for checking from behind was the seventh for that dangerous offense this season.

“It’s been an emphasis for the last several seasons,” Daly said. “I do think that the numbers of incidents are going down. The toughest ones are where there is a sense that the target puts himself in a vulnerable position.”

The sale of the St. Louis Blues and the Savvis Center to a group headed by Dave Checketts, the former chief executive of Madison Square Garden, is good news for a team that had disintegrated into a sad mess after years of being known for its competitiveness and honest efforts.

Checketts says he won’t move the team -- the Blues’ lease binds them to the arena until 2010 -- but to bring fans back, his first move must be to rebuild a gritty team. Years of foolish spending followed by drastic payroll cuts have left the Blues thin and gave fans no compelling reason to attend games anymore.

Checketts had previously explored acquiring the Boston Red Sox and the Dodgers, so this acquisition of a mid-market team is curious -- unless it’s a prelude to an effort to bring the NBA back to St. Louis.