Burkholder Heads East

Ottawa, Ontario (CP) -

The Ottawa Senators went out and made a big hire in bringing over Neil Burkholder from the Vancouver Canucks in a rare mid-season move. The Ottawa Senators was suppose to be a playoff contender which ended up turning into one long season for the Senators, and it ended up causing veteran OTHL GM Alex Tousignant to resign from the General Manager position just before the trade deadline.

The Senators wanted to fill the GM position with a GM with experience and playoff experience which the team did just that by getting their man in Neil Burkholder. Burkholder took the Vancouver Canucks from being one of those average teams, and turned them into a President’s Trophy team, but the only issue was his teams in Vancouver kept getting knocked out in the first round during Burkholder’s two year tenure.

The bigger surprise is that GM Burkholder jumped shipped from Vancouver to head out east to take over the reigns in Ottawa. The Canucks are still competing in the West, and still have enough fire power to keep going strong in the playoff race, and a young franchise net minder in Jonathan Quick. Along with one of the more diverse prospect pools in the making, and Burkholder just left.

It’s no secret that Mike Illitch and Burkholder’s hometown Red Wings was talking about their vacant General Manager spot in Detroit, but Burkholder decided to stay and keep going in Vancouver, but it seems like Burkholder thought it was time to head out east and take over the Senators.

A Press Conference is scheduled for noon tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll all find out what has happened.