Perhaps the only good thing the Toronto Maple Leafs are doing for anyone besides the advanced stats community these days is providing a distraction for their old boss.

Brian Burke may be gone, but the cronyism he put into place at Air Canada Center is the reason the Leafs are awful. For all the good he did in rebuilding that roster — and let's be fair, there's a lot of it, from trading for Phil Kessel, Dion Phaneuf and Jake Gardiner and the drafting of Nazem Kadri, among other things — he is also the reason Randy Carlyle is behind the bench, and Dave Nonis is in the front office, and there's so many awful players on the roster.

The Leafs are cratering in a way that is very fun and exciting for everyone who is not a Leafs fan (and Dom) and this is directly due to their insistence on being “hard to play against,” and all that kind of thing.

The number of guys on their roster who get less than 10 minutes a night but have played 20 or more games is at three (Carter Ashton, Frazer McLaren, and Colton Orr at 20, 21, and 34, respectively), indicating that Carlyle has little to no faith in their ability to be good contributors to the team itself, but nonetheless slots them into the lineup regularly. It seems a curious way to run a hockey team, and no one on earth who's looking at things rationally can at this point defend the way in which Carlyle composes his roster or runs his bench. He plays favorites and allows some guys — typically those who are bad but tough — free reign to do more or less anything they want while skill guys make one inconsequential turnover and get benched. This is all well-known stuff at this point. It doesn't need a lot of rehashing, and is further self-evident every time the Leafs take the ice and get creamed; they have two regulation wins since Nov. 20 for a reason.

But while the rest of Canada watches helpless as the Leafs burn to the ground after their summer of inexplicably expensive signings, the team Brian Burke runs now is playing some historically futile hockey.

The Calgary Flames may not be the worst team in the league this season, but they're certainly trending that way, and Burke is being given the opportunity to craft the team in whatever image he likes. One suspects it will resemble the Maple Leafs before too long.

The Flames scored a goal against the Penguins in a 2-1 loss on Saturday, which is only notable because of how often they had been not-scoring in the previous several games. In the seven contests leading up to that (predictable) loss, Calgary had scored but five goals, four of which came in one win over the Colorado Avalanche. Put another way: They were shut out in five of their previous seven games, and the goal that broke that run came inside the final 10 minutes of Saturday's contest.

To find a team that has been shut out that often in such a short period of time, one must head all the way back to the 1928-29 season. The Pittsburgh Pirates were shut out five times in six games back then, scoring just once in that stretch, while the Chicago Blackhawks (the most shut-out team in NHL history, at 20 games in which they were held goalless) went eight straight without a goal from Feb. 7-28. That season, you'll note, was the league's last prior to the stock market crash that helped spark the Great Depression, which is something in which many in Calgary must feel themselves mired.

But people knew the Flames would be bad this season. Was it generally thought they would be THIS bad?

Perhaps not; anecdotally, most observers had them in the bottom five, but they're charging hard for Buffalo's 30th-place spot with a .355 winning percentage since Nov. 3. Just three of their nine wins in those last 31 games were in regulation. Things will, predictably, only get worse when they start selling players, mostly forwards, as the trade deadline approaches.

The real problem, though, is that Burke has the keys now. After the merciful firing of Jay Feaster, it was speculated that he would approach things aggressively when it came to finding a new GM, but most now seem to think he'll stay out of the market until around the draft this summer. Until then, he'll mold the team to his preference, and his preference is, to paraphrase his philosophy as laid out in the Feaster firing presser: “surround skill with beef.”

The Flames know they now have to play Tough Hockey to get ice time, and Bob Hartley knows he has to keep those guys in the lineup because if he doesn't, he doesn't have a job after this season. He might not anyway, but he's going out compliant; Saturday night, both Penguins goals were scored with the same five skaters out there: Brian McGrattan, Kevin Westgarth (a recent Burke acquisition), Joe Colborne (picked up in a trade after Burke was hired), Shane O'Brien, and Dennis Wideman. In theory, Colborne and Wideman are the skill guys there, but the first goal was a direct result of the latter being overwhelmed by his teammates' ineffectiveness and making a doomed clearing attempt from his knees.

Giving Burke the ability to bring in his guys is what led the Leafs to their current hilariously bad state, both directly and indirectly, and now he has the ability to make the same mistakes in Calgary. A potentially unending rebuild, misappropriation of cap resources, and unwatchable hockey for years to come because of a sad devotion to an ancient religion that will never help the team conjure up possession, goals, or the resultant wins that come with them. Maybe a smoke-and-mirrors playoff appearance mixed in.

Even when the Oilers were at their worst the last few seasons — and to be fair they're still a point behind Calgary in the standings right now — every loss was a scandal in the Canadian media. Every one, even now, is still scrutinized by the local scribes at least as to the role the team's defensive responsibility plays in the ongoing failure. It hasn't been that way in Calgary, where everyone seems to have just given up already (and who can blame them?), while the national people turn their attention to the colossal tire fire in the world's hockey capital. Thus, under cover of darkness, can the Flames continue to toil in futility with nary a question raised by anyone of import until the damage to the organization is already done, using the same methods that got the Leafs where they are today.

It's going to be an abysmal few years.

I haven’t seen it. I was still recovering from the road trip so I didn’t turn on that game. I did however this morning hear all about that game. We had a scout at the game who gave Dustin Brown a five in the game which is the highest rating you can get in the game. He talked about the battle. His comment was, ‘If this is what Team USA will do to each other, then wait until they get Canada on the other side.’ Yeah, I heard about it. I haven’t seen it quite yet. I did hear and get the report that Dustin and all the Olympians were really good in that game.”