For Sudbury Wolves, Connor Burgess' departure merely removes a distraction

Connor Burgess, this much is obvious, never should have been in a position to become such an object of scorn for much of the Sudbury Wolves fanbase.

The best part about news that the son of Wolves owner Mark Burgess has left to pursue his university studies full-time is that 18-year-old Connor is free to get on with the rest of his life and discover hockey for its own sake, like the rest of us. The worst part might be on the Wolves' end; no longer having the sideshow of playing someone whose only qualification for being in the OHL appeared to be on the back of his jersey removes any distraction from the state of the team.

The ire in Sudbury was never about Connor Burgess himself; he just made for an easy target. Having the owner's "out of his element as an OHL player" son who was unable to "successfully compete" on the team was merely an obvious symptom of a larger problem with a franchise that has not won a title since 1932.

While Connor Burgess leaving ends "one of the most dysfunctional chapters in [the Wolves'] history," there's not necessarily any signal the dysfunction will be addressed.

Since the owner's son was drafted, the Wolves had first their director of scouting and then coach Trent Cull leave for other jobs within the past 24 months. I can't say whether that was directly due to the burgeoning Burgess soap opera, but it happened, and it affected the Wolves most of all.

General manager Blaine Smith also pulled the trigger on some positioning-for-a-playoff-run trades in January 2014, only to have the team flop 4-0 in the first round to the Barrie Colts.

It's one thing to have a bad year or a late-season collapse. It's another when a team cannot keep good hockey people in the organization. That is usually the root cause with most of major junior hockey's chronic also-rans..

With Connor Burgess gone, there are no more excuses for the Wolves' state, aside from the injury that has kept 45-goal scorer Nick Baptiste out of the lineup for the first eight games.

That 1-7-0-0 start might only be the tip of the iceberg. For starters, the victory came in the season opener over the Niagara IceDogs, the only OHL team that has yet to win a game. The Wolves have also given up at least 38 shots on goal in every game save for one. For those who dabble in the fancy stats, Josh Weissbock's crew estimates that the Wolves have a sub-40 per cent Fenwick Close, an unhealthy 5% worse than the next most outplayed team in the league, the Ottawa 67's.

Put that in a hockey city that is starved for success and the anger is understadable. Without Connor Burgess as a target, who knows where this goes next.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.