You can fire him. You can point out the fruitlessness of his four-year run as Leafs president and GM.

But as Toronto's sports fans are now coming to understand, there are a couple of things you cannot do to Brian Burke. Humble him, for instance, or break his addiction to unceasing attention.

Burke, perhaps you've heard, found himself in front of another microphone this past week at a local sports-celebrity dinner. The ex-GM was speaking only a few days after he raised eyebrows in Boston, warning the attendees of an esteemed MIT-run sports analytics conference of the evils of math. Yet again he didn't fail to provoke.

“You do all the work, you set the table, somebody else eats the meal . . .”

This was Burke talking of his fate and the relative upswing being enjoyed by his former team since he left.

So let's get this straight. Never mind the litany of low points plumbed on Burke's watch. Never mind the four straight springs without a playoff game. Never mind squandering the first-round draft picks that became Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton or stubbornly sticking with an old college buddy as coach even though Burke would later acknowledge that his hockey philosophy and Ron Wilson's were polar opposites.

Only Burke could ignore all that and crow about how he “set the table.” Anyone less shameless would plead guilty to setting ablaze the greasetrap and leaving the hotdog stand in ashes.

“I loved my time here,” Burke went on. Was he saying he loved all the losing?

“I'm going to go somewhere else,” he said. “I'm going to try and haunt this team.”

That's a charming threat, but he doesn't need to lift a finger to have success on that front. Anyone who watched the Leafs pull off an impressive comeback in a 5-4 shootout loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday night knows that Burke's missteps loom over this team like menacing ghosts. Burkie's Dogs, the Air Canada Centre fast-food emporium, may be history. But Burkie's dogs refuse to die. They threaten to keep a decent team from becoming a really good one anytime soon.

The Leafs, let's be clear, put on a terrific performance on the occasion of Sidney Crosby's first Toronto appearance in more than three years. They ground out a point after falling behind 3-1 to the league's highest scoring team, and certainly Burke had plenty to do with assembling the roster that made that happen (not to mention the presence of the goaltender, James Reimer, who let in at least a couple of goals unbecoming of an NHL No. 1).

Still, witness the healthy residents of the press box on Saturday, John-Michael Liles and Mike Komisarek. Both of them were signed by Burke for a combined $8-plus million a season; neither can find a place in an NHL game. Witness a $4.75 million minor-league centre named Tim Connolly; he was Burke's free-agent prize of a couple of summers ago.

Witness the enduring invisibility of Nikolai Kulemin and Mikhail Grabovski, another pair of Burke signings currently failing to pull their weight as alleged second-line forwards.

Kulemin has two goals in 26 games. And as for Grabovski — the Maple Leafs are 12 games into their 24-game home schedule, and Grabovski has precisely one goal and zero assists at the Air Canada Centre this year. Maybe that'd be fine if he was a bit player. But a year ago this month Burke made him the highest-paid forward on the team, complete with a $5.5-million cap hit that doesn't abate until after 2016-17.

Maybe some of Grabovski's lack of production can be justified by his defensive responsibilities. But his salary puts Burke's successor Dave Nonis in a difficult spot this summer, when Leafs forwards Tyler Bozak and Clarke MacArthur will be unrestricted free agents who'll be able to make a case that they're far more productive team members than the below-the-radar Belarusian.

Already this season Randy Carlyle has publicly suggested Grabovski needs to play with “more fire.” Grabovski hasn't taken kindly to the suggestion. And the joke around the Maple Leafs dressing room is that Grabovski, never one to blame himself for his problems, has again taken to blaming his Easton sticks. Right, Grabo — it must be the sticks.

Nobody's saying Burke didn't make significant contributions to the organization. But his mistakes far overrode his successes, just as his stubbornness trumped his intelligence. A coach with a clue has changed much, which only tells you how gravely Burke erred in not making the move sooner.

All those folks who lamented the timing of Burke's firing on the eve of the season — well, it'd be nice if they'd demonstrate how it's hurt the club. Carlyle likes to dismiss the incessant babble around Leafland as “white noise.” Now that a human white noise machine no longer comes to work at the ACC, is it any surprise that hockey, not hokum, is usually the daily focus? Not that Burke can resist making himself the story.

“That's how it works sometimes. It's unfortunate sometimes you don't get to see it through. That's our job is to do that,” Burke went on at the Conn Smythe dinner. “I think the team's well on the way. I think it's Dave's team. He deserves the credit. People are saying, ‘You put this in place . . .' That's our job. I think there's a lot of pieces that have been put in place that will allow this team to be successful.”

In other words: Dave deserves the credit — wink, wink — but feel free to give it to me. At least we know now it's a sickness. There is officially no convincing Brian Burke that Brian Burke isn't a genius, mad or otherwise.

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