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In the dog days of summer, on the tail end of a long weekend, the bits and pieces of one of the more troubling parts of the Winnipeg Jets off season begins to take shape. Today on Twitter, as I enjoy the second leg of my vacation, a retweet popped up.
Now I'm not sure how accurate it is but the person who made the claim is a reporter for Sports Express in Riga Latvia in their hockey department.
I have gone to the website and tried finding anything there to support the claim from Eronko but nothing seems to be there in terms of video or article. This simply could be a preview to what is coming on the sight from Eronko soon.
The interesting part of this issue is that Jokinen is lumped in to the scorn the young Russian has towards the organization. It's an interesting choice as the veteran centre was brought in to help the team and give Burmistrov some space and support. It appears according to information on Eronko's twitter feed that Burmistrov was unhappy with ice time and Jokinen getting more.
While there is no denying that Burmistrov is talented, possessing a skill set that the Jets need it can also be said that he wasn't ready to shoulder the load of second line centre. He needs more time to develop if he is the be the driving force on that line, the numbers support this claim, and Jokinen was an obvious fix.
What I find interesting is that a quote from earlier this summer from Jets coach Claude Noel claiming he 'had nothing against Burmistrov' or was 'unaware the player had issues with him'. Thos are strong words refuting the situation.
Whatever the case this year there is now some tangible reason as to why Burmistrov left and should this year be step back for the Jets blame can now placed at the feet of Noel and GM Chevaldayoff for the handling of Burmistrov.
In fairness it would seem that the departure of a 21 year old Russian who is not quite ready to carry a line should not set back a team. However, on a team with depth challenges and currently on a long run without seeing post season action is having any level of significant talent walk away with no return a good thing?
It all depends and if this kind of attitude was present, if not problematic for the Jets, then maybe less is more until a player matures and understands you do have to work your way to the top. That being said, a coach needs to know when things at the top aren't working either.
Hopefully we get more information with some specifics from Eronko and Burmistrov.
Back to vacation.
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