Did anyone link Burke's quotes on him? I didn't see them yet.
http://flames.nhl.com/club/news.htm?...id=DL|CGY|home
“I thought Matt was a good player in Toronto,” the Flames’ president of hockey operations said via phone during the first intermission of Calgary’s 3-2 loss in San Jose. “The only reason we traded him was that Darryl Sutter insisted that he be in the deal for Dion Phaneuf. That’s the only reason I traded him. I told him that when I came here.
“But he’s a far better hockey player now than he was then. He’s just more alert, his positional play is stronger, he goes where he’s supposed to go without hesitation, his reaction time is much less, which is typical as players get older, but his work ethic has been consistent since he turned pro. His hockey sense has finely developed.
“He does a lot of things well and if our team performance were better, that would be reflective with higher numbers, too.”
“People may point out his point production isn’t great but we’re not a team that scores a lot of goals,” he said. “His contributions come in many other ways -- faceoffs, forechecking, penalty kill. He just does a lot of things well.”
“He’s a leader on our team and he’s a disciple in terms of our system, in terms of training camp, how hard we’ve worked and just buying into the system to work with these younger players,” Burke said. “He’s been terrific for us.”
“It’s critical,” he said. “We have to change the culture here so when you get a guy who’s buying into the new culture, buying into what the coach is teaching and then passing that along and re-enforcing it, encouraging it with the younger players, those are critical things.
“I think Matt’s an important player for our hockey team and I’m glad he’s under contract now. I think it’s an important day for us.”