I'd expect Brian Burkes phone to be ringing. At the least he'd bring some nice quotes for a franchise in desperate need of anything.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=415849

 

Burke will be announced as new GM by the end of the week....Howson was in way over his head by the way. Just horrible....

                                                        Shocker!

Odd timing if nothing else. They played their best game of the year, hammering the Sharks. They looked like an NHL team. Jack Johnson is a horse for them.

In response to dezaruchi's comment:

why now? he was there for like 7 years, they got someone on there radar!

When the owner brought in John Davidson as President of Hockey Ops... Howson should have been polishing up his resume, maybe he was .. He's the reason Nash is in NY.. You can't argue with the job JD did in St.Louis, his imprint is on that franchise..maybe he can do the same with Columbus.. This team needs a major rebuild.. they have some good pieces, and with 3 - 1st round picks coming down the line,they will be in a good position to plan for the future.  What they need now is a good GM to manage this transition, and Burke ain't it.. Guys on the telecast where mentioning Ron Hextall and he has been tutoring for this job for a while..

In response to kelvana33's comment:

"Hello?"

"Brian?  It's John Davidson."

"Oh....hey John."

"We'd like to offer you the GM position of the Blue Jackets".

"Sounds great!  I'll take it!  Oh....can you hold on a sec?  I gotta another call.  Hello?"

"Hey Brian.  It's Peter Chiarelli......"

I think Columbus is hoping and praying the Kings' slow start continues all year.  They'd be drafting 4 and 5 right now, with the Rangers' pick mid-first round.

Burke's name in interesting, and you can sort of see the point, but cowboys's point is key here.   They have 3 first rounders to go with Ryan Murray, Ryan Johansen, and Boone Jenner.  Petr Straka has been putting up good numbers for Baie-Comeau, too.  They'll be choosing between guys who want to build through the draft and guys who want to use those assets to get significantly better right now through trades for established players.  Do you let Burke run either of those programs based on his time with the Laffs? 

New GM, meet Jarmo Kekalainen :

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=415882

 

didn't see this coming...good luck Jarmo!

Would have overlapped with PC back in the day, though not when PC was Assistant GM in Ottawa. 

So Stanley didn't the gig?  Damn......he'll be back soon enough......well....I guess he never left.

In response to jalvis' comment:

Maybe he is Jarmo in disguise?

Don't give him ideas.

In response to jmwalters's comment:

If you watched NHL Network a couple of years ago, they did a show in which they followed the St. Louis Blues on draft day...Jarmo pretty much ran the whole show. It was a pretty good take.

In response to kelvana33's comment:

didn't see it. Makes sense in that context. He has his work cut out for him to be sure.....

This is like dating a girl who's last boyfriend was an unemployed drug addict who beat her nightly.  He basically cannot fail.

And yet, Howson followed Doug MacLean and found a way to fail.

In response to Bookboy007's comment:

Anyone who follows Doug MacLean is slotted for failure........