Mike Brophy

Veteran hockey columnist Mike Brophy writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday on Sportsnet.ca and appears regularly on Hockeycentral.

Ron Wilson.

Under normal circumstances, you’d have to think Ron Wilson is living on borrowed time.

But there is precious little normal about the 2009-10 Toronto Maple Leafs and therefore it is highly unlikely their coach, in his second year with the organization, will be fired any time soon.

Not that this is an endorsement for Wilson to be pink-slipped. That decision is in the hands of general manager Brian Burke and his bosses at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.

Wilson is in Year 2 of a four-year contract he signed prior to last season, less than a month after he was let go by the San Jose Sharks.

Given the fact the Maple Leafs have an endless supply of money, you’d think eating the final two-plus years of a contract would be no problem for the organization, especially with the salary cap keeping players’ salaries down.

But Wilson also happens to be the coach for the United States men’s hockey team, which will play at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver in February.

Firing coaches early in the season is hardly unprecedented.

Last season Denis Savard was released on Oct. 18 by the Chicago Blackhawks after just four games and replaced behind the bench with Joel Quenneville.

The Barry Melrose experiment in Tampa Bay didn’t last much longer. After more than a decade away from coaching, Melrose returned with the Lightning, but was fired Nov. 16 after failing to play and develop No. 1 overall pick Steven Stamkos.

A few weeks later, on Dec. 4, Paul Maurice returned to the Carolina Hurricanes whom he led to the Stanley Cup final in 2002, replacing Peter Laviolette.

With that being said, it hardly seems likely Burke will tie a can to his Leafs coach and then prop him up behind the bench of Team USA?

Wilson may not have been Burke’s choice to tutor the Leafs – he was hired before the GM was brought in from Anaheim – but he was responsible for hiring him to coach the Americans. The optics just wouldn’t be right.

The Leafs are the NHL’s worst defensive team, allowing an average of 3.75 goals-per-game, and are also the NHL’s worst penalty killers operating at a miserable 72.3 per cent success rate.

They rank 23rd in goals for at 2.60 per game. The only bright spot, from a team perspective, is the power play, which ranks fourth best at 25 per cent.

So if Wilson is safe, for now, what can the Leafs do to turn things around? Burke said last night, following a humiliating 6-5 shootout loss in Carolina, a game in which the Leafs opened a convincing 3-0 lead, that he is prepared to start sending salaries to the American League and bring up kids to give them a chance.

That may have positive results down the road, but there is nobody on the Marlies who will come up and turn this sinking ship around.

Just about everything that could go wrong has for the Leafs.

High-priced free agents such as Mike Komisarek, currently injured, and Francois Beauchemin have not had an immediate positive impact on the defence while rookie goaltender Jonas Gustavsson has shown signs of being a capable No. 1, but has recently struggled.

None from the group of college kids Burke signed is skating with the parent team.

Phil Kessel, for whom Burke gave up two first round picks and a second round selection to the Boston Bruins, has played very well upon his return from shoulder surgery scoring five goals and eight points in eight games. But even that snippet of good news comes with a caveat. Given the team’s current plight and seemingly inevitable horrible finish to this season, you’d have to think fans would take great delight in the possibility of acquiring a franchise player in next June’s draft with possibly the first or second overall pick. Unless Burke can trick another bottom feeder into giving the Leafs their first pick, that ain’t gonna happen.

With 63 games to go, it is going to be interesting to see how Burke navigates his way out of this mess. For all intents and purposes, this year is a write-off. Although Burke suggested at the start of the year that anything less than making the playoffs would be a failure, he must somehow find a way to start building for the future beyond 2009-10.

Burke had a grace period upon joining the team last season, but that has disappeared. Had he chosen to build the team slowly through the draft, I am certain the locals would have understood. But that’s not his style. He went looking for a quick fix and now has himself in a bind.

What next?