Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
If Burke caves in to pressure, it will be the ultimate sign that he's more beholden to his pal than to the long-term good of the team.
Burke's stated team design was to "Build from the net out". At the start of the season, I thought Burke's defence was the weakest link followed by the goaltending question (could Reimer carry on his level of play from last season).
"I feel I can put this group up one through six against any team in the league and say I'm comfortable with that," Burke says. "We've worked very hard to put this group together." 2010
Although it wasn't a large enough number of games to be very certain, including preseason, Reimer looked kind of ordinary to me - not the goalie I saw last season.
If this team fails to make the playoffs and the PK is 30th (with the goalie being the #1 Pker) and the team defence 28th (or thereabouts again), Wilson isn't going to be the only guy in trouble. Because the core building blocks Burke stated he was putting in place to build this club upon will have largely failed.
If Burke "caves into pressure", to some extent, it will be to salvage his own hide. In the best case, if they fail to make the playoffs this season, he's probably got one coaching change left in his tenure in the near term. If that fails next year, he'll be done for sure.
I like the guy. I don't think he's done a bad job. But he's not that far off from feeling significant heat in all of this if they fall short this season.