Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

Brian Burke's In Charge

02/10/2021 at 6:06pm EST

from Ray Ratto at Defector.com,

Brian Burke is not just the square-headed cartoon of the map of Ireland that he has played on television, though in honesty that role is probably his truest calling. He is that, but he is also a bunch of things that seem utterly opposed to each other, and now that he has become the Pittsburgh Penguins’ new brain in a jar, he is the indefatigable firehouse dog. Someone asked him to help run a shop, and even though he was doing just fine as a more digestible version of Don Cherry on Hockey Night In Canada and isn’t particularly analytics-driven, Burke took the gig without much negotiating: “Only as long as it is less secure than my TV contract and allows me to perfect my imitation of Pat Quinn.” Burke wouldn’t have done it for free, but it seems likely that he’d have at least considered accepting it for minimum wage.

Burke is going to run the Penguins with another Rottweiler impersonator in new general manager Ron Hextall, and together they will inherit the back end of Sidney Crosby’s career as well as those of Geno Malkin and Kris Letang. It seems an imperfect fit at first glance, given that Burke traditionally likes teams that will headbutt locomotives and fistfight tractors and the Penguins have been the stereotypically elegant team, with the singular exceptions of Crosby-v.-Alexander Ovechkin and Steve Downie v. any mammal you’ve got.

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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