Amazing at the start, lost in the middle and dominant at the end, Burke had quintessential rollercoaster career.
Two things led onlookers to draw comparisons between Sean Burke and legendary Ken Dryden in the early days of the former’s career: size and success. In frame, they were similar, standing a towering 6-foot-4 before the age of the gargantuan goaltender. Most importantly, winning appeared natural. Two decades before Burke guided a young New Jersey team to the playoffs with a late-season push and backstopped them to the conference final, Dryden rattled off six straight victories as an NHL rookie before guiding Montreal to a Stanley Cup.
Almost as soon as the ‘Next Dryden’ tag was affixed to Burke’s name, though, it disappeared. Whereas Dryden would go on to win the Calder Trophy, five Vezina Trophies, six Cups and spend his entire career with one organization, Burke’s career had ups and downs. First, he got into a contract dispute with the Devils that resulted in a trade to Hartford. Six seasons later, he was suiting up for Vancouver. Then Philadelphia, Florida and Phoenix. Despite being heralded as the second coming of an all-time great, Burke admits now that by the time he was 10 years into his career, he had lost his way. “You get into some bad habits, you’re playing maybe on instinct, you’re stubborn, you’ve done things the same way, and you just believe you maybe know more than you do,” said Burke, now 51. “And I started to hit a wall. Luckily, when I got to Arizona, it was the perfect situation because Benoit Allaire was there.”
At the time, it appeared Burke’s best years had passed him by. He had gone from a reliable No. 1 to trade fodder for the Canucks, Flyers and Panthers. So, knowing that things needed to change, he made the decision to open himself up to Allaire’s tutelage. Burke wasn’t from the generation of having a goaltending coach. Beyond the odd voice or helping hand, he hadn’t had position-specific coaching in junior or with the Canadian national team at the Olympics. But he was willing to take in what he could if it meant rediscovering his form. “I believed I would be able to go out and compete hard every night and use the athleticism and instincts and those kinds of things, like experience,” Burke said. “But you get older, and those things aren’t as readily available to you. Your body doesn’t give you that option every night. If you’re going to survive and be an effective player and consistent, you need to have other things. Benoit was able to take my game and give me those parts of it that I didn’t have, more of the detail, more of the structure.”
The results of Burke’s relationship with Allaire, which stretched five years, were evident immediately. In his first full season with the Coyotes, Burke was outstanding, almost single-handedly guiding Arizona to the playoffs en route to a then-career-best sixth-place finish in Vezina voting. And despite turning 35 the next season, Burke posted an impeccable .920 save percentage and 2.29 goals-against average to secure a third-place Vezina finish and fourth-place Hart Trophy finish.
Burke believes he would have been out of the league sooner if not for his time in Arizona. Even still, he hesitates to call his time with the Coyotes, or any season, his best. “You want to be able to say you went out, competed hard every night and were a guy that showed up to play and your teammates respected you,” Burke said. “Those were things I can look back on, but I don’t really break it down to the best years, because unless you won the Stanley Cup, you probably, or at least I do, you’re always looking back and saying what could have been, not what you did.”
Upon concluding his NHL career at the end of the 2006-07 season, Burke returned to the Coyotes as the team’s director of player development, later following in Allaire’s footsteps as Phoenix’s goaltending coach, helping revive the careers of Ilya Bryzgalov, Mike Smith and Devan Dubnyk, before adding assistant GM to his title. Burke departed Arizona following the 2015-16 season, however, moving into the role of pro scout for the Montreal Canadiens. He also served as an assistant GM on Canada’s 2017 World Championship outfit before taking the reins as GM of Canada’s 2018 bronze medal-winning Olympic team.
Born: Jan. 29, 1967, Windsor, Ont.
NHL Career: 1988-2007
Teams: NJ, Hfd/Car, Van, Phi, Fla, Phx, TB, LA
Stats: 324-341-110, 2.96 GAA, .902 SP, 38 SO
DID YOU KNOW?
Beyond guiding the Devils to the playoffs during his late-season NHL debut in 1987-88, Burke captured the attention of one awards voter, who deemed the goalie worthy of a third-place vote for the Hart Trophy. While Burke didn’t come close to winning the award, which went to Mario Lemieux, the netminder’s 13 games played are the fewest by any player to finish top-10 in Hart voting in the award’s history.