from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- The signing of Joe Thornton, not long after the signing of Wayne Simmonds, not long after the return of Jason Spezza is Maple Leafs management’s not-so-quiet indictment of club leadership.

None of the three elders have a whole lot of game left in their marvelous careers. But all three will be expected to show the way in the upcoming Leafs’ season, whenever that will be.

At 41, Thornton is slower than slow in a fast man’s sport, and has had an elite NHL career. Whether he can contribute much as a player — maybe on the second power play, maybe down low in the offensive zone — the thinking of those who know him best is that his contribution will come from his natural leadership skills....

- Hard to figure out the Florida Panthers. In the past year they hired Joel Quenneville to coach, brought in Sergei Bobrovsky to play goal, replaced Dale Tallon with Bill Zito as general manager, and lost three decent forwards, Mike Hoffman, Evgeny Dadonov and Vinny Trocheck and defenceman Mike Matheson. Are they getting better? Getting worse? Hard to know.

- How can Brian Burke be such a fine father and, at times, such a despicable human being? The way Burke writes about Steve Moore in his recent book, Burke’s Law, is enough to turn your stomach. Not a word of sympathy. It’s 16 years after the horrible incident that cost Moore his career, and Burke piles on him in the book, apparently sad about what happened to Todd Bertuzzi’s career, with not an ounce of empathy for the injured Moore, who he denigrates as a minor leaguer, like that meant it was OK to ruin his life. “To this day, I’m convinced that the injuries weren’t severe enough to end his career. I think he could have come back and played if he wanted to,” wrote Burke. The 10 or so pages on the subject in Burke’s Law border on disgraceful.

more on the first topic an other hockey related notes...