Burke Has His Crosshairs on Tavares

When the NHL hosts its draft lottery on Tuesday night, the highest the Maple Leafs can land is the third overall pick. That's two picks too late to select John Tavares, the consensus No. 1 pick who will go to either the Islanders or Lightning.

But you can get anything you want if you want it bad enough, and Toronto GM Brian Burke wants Tavares. Badly.

That's why Burke is making no qualms about his plans: when the ordering of picks sorts itself out through the lottery, and he knows where his team picks and who has the first-overall selection, he will do whatever he can to try to land that pick and, by proxy, Tavares.

"We'll find out what our draft position is tonight and we will immediately attempt to move up," Burke said in a news conference. "We're not going to ambush anyone. I've done this a couple of times. I'm not going to be able to sneak up on anyone. So we're just going to announce it today.

"Once we figure out who's got those top couple of picks, we're going to go after them and see if we can move up. And if the deal makes sense, we will."

The question: will Burke be willing to pay whatever price the holder of the No. 1 selection sets? If it's the Islanders, a team that desperately needs a shot to the arm of its long-suffering fanbase as well as a new bargaining chip in their battle to get a new arena, the price for Tavares might be set exorbitantly high. In their case, there is more intangible value to having that pick than can be made up for in whatever return package Toronto would be comfortable sending.

To that end, some might wonder if Burke's honesty is further damaging his leverage in a potential trade; if it's obvious that he wants Tavares, can't teams milk him for more than deserved? Yet Burke astutely points out that "If I thought there was a tactical advantage to doing this quietly, I wouldn't be telling you guys what the strategy is."

Burke has a well-known history of high-profile draft day deals, and it serves no purpose for him to attempt to pull the wool over anyone's eyes when it's plainly obvious that two plus two equals four. His honesty is more refreshing than anything, but will it still be enough to get him what he wants? I have my doubts.