People are afraid of saying this, but it's true. The precedent was set when Roger Neilson was inducted. A lot of this was because the terminal illness and the fact that he'd coached in Toronto. Otherwise, his name isn't up there with Toe Blake, Punch Imlach, Scotty Bowman, Al Arbour or even Glen Sather.
Burns's accomplishments are 1 Prince of Wales championship (lost to Flames in the Finals!), one Stanley Cup, 3 Jack Adams trophies with lifetime record of 501-353.
http://www.hockey-reference.com/coaches/burnspa99c.html
He is not in the top 10 for any of the major categories of games coached, wins, losses (yep, coach several years and you're going to lose a lot games) and titles.
To benchmark:
Iron Mike had 2 Prince of Wales championships, a Clarence Campbell championship, one Stanley Cup, 1 Jack Adams trophy with a lifetime record of 672-531.
http://www.hockey-reference.com/coaches/keenami99c.html
Both men were known as abrasive, and their styles tended to soon wear thin. Burns had a better Win % during the regular season with .573 vs. .551 for Keenan. Keenan had a better Win % in the playoffs with .555 vs. .523 for Burns. Seems like a fair comparison.
So, is anybody here going to discuss a future HHOF induction for Mike Keenan?
One last thing about Pat Burns, many years ago, while Toronto radio station CHUM-FM Toronto was on my car stereo a report came on with their sports guy, Rick Hodge. He indicated that there were veteran players who were "tuning out" Burns. If you had to peg me for the names, they'd begin with Andreychuk and Gilmour. Wouldn't it stand to reason that a Hall of Fame coach would be able to get his message through to the main on-ice leaders?