During his tenure as general manager of the Vancouver Canucks, Brian Burke completed several franchise-altering trades, including acquiring the draft picks for Daniel and Henrik Sedin alongside key players like Ed Jovanovski and Trevor Linden. However, a recent revelation reveals that the team nearly landed star goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff before he achieved stardom elsewhere.
A Near-Miss Trade for a Future Star
According to sports.yahoo.com, Patrick Burke shared the trade story during an appearance on the 32 Thoughts podcast hosted by Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas. When asked by Friedman about a trade his father regretted not making, Patrick pointed to the negotiations for Kiprusoff, stating that Brian Burke and Dave Nonis pursued the goaltender aggressively while in Vancouver.
Patrick Burke explained that the talks stalled over a conditional draft pick, a mechanism less common at the time than it is today. “I think it was just getting too convoluted, but I remember Kiprusoff being on the table in Vancouver and years of goaltending problems in Vancouver that that may have solved,” Patrick Burke said, as reported by sports.yahoo.com. At the time of the talks, Kiprusoff was still an unknown quantity.
Kiprusoff’s Career Path and Vancouver’s Eventual Solution
While the exact timing of the discussions was not disclosed, the deal would have taken place prior to Kiprusoff’s trade from the San Jose Sharks to the Calgary Flames on November 16, 2003. When that trade occurred, Kiprusoff held a 14-21-3 record across three seasons with the Sharks.
Following the failed negotiations with Vancouver, Kiprusoff blossomed into one of the top Finnish goaltenders in NHL history, capturing the Vezina Trophy in 2006 and accumulating 319 career wins. The Canucks eventually secured a long-term solution in net later that same year when Dave Nonis traded for Roberto Luongo from the Florida Panthers.
