Leaf fans would have been patient 5 plus years ago but now they're pissed because they feel this team is starting to look like it needs to be rebuilt again . Only a homer would believe this team wouldn't have been better off with Seguin/Hamilton than with Kessel .
OTTP wasn't looking to sell when Burke and BC were hired and Peddie was looking for a big name GM after hiring rookies with brutal results . Burke was the one big name GM who choose to come here but Peddie would just have been as happy if not more with Holland or Rutherford .
Burke would say anything depending on the situation regardless of whether it contradicted his previous statements and a guy like him would never admit to making a mistake without shifting the blame for the mistake elsewhere .
Burke said he wasn't interested in doing a draft rebuild , I believe that was after he traded the picks however .
I never said the team wouldn't be better off with Seguin and Hamilton. I actually hate the trade and I question what Burke was thinking. I just don't think it is some egregious move that crippled the franchise for the next decade. As I said, Seguin basically seems like a center version of Kessel.
We don't know exactly when the OTPP was looking to sell, but there were rumours of it for a while. From the reports, Peddie hired the rookie GM's that he could control for both teams, but then when they did a bad job, Tannenbaum went above him and tried to hire more experienced GM's.
He first brought in Colangelo who brought immediate success. Then he tried to bring in Scotty Bowman for the Leafs, but when Bowman said the whole thing needed to be torn down and slowly rebuilt, he was essentially told to get lost.
The Leafs then went and poached Burke from Anaheim. I don't know if they would have been happy with any established GM (i.e. Holland, Rutherford), but given the evidence it seems like they were looking for somebody to get the team competitive quickly.