Davey Clarkman is back, baby!

What a weird world we live in. After the Leafs have done gods work to clear enough cap space to keep all of the good parts of this team together, Dubas also decided to spice up our summer even more and bring back the man, the myth, the legend himself, Wendel Clark… er, I mean David Clarkson.

Apparently, the Vegas Golden Knights need money or something, so the Leafs have acquired David Clarkson’s contract and a fourth round pick for Garret Sparks.

First off, Dave Nonis is a liar. He said we wouldn’t have to worry about years six or seven, and here we are in year seven, with David Clarkson on our cap. No wonder he got fired.

In all seriousness, this is just bizarre. I’m no cap expert, but the easiest way to explain this is that because he’s LTIRetired, Clarkson won’t count against the cap at all. He’s basically Nathan Horton, who we traded him for in the first place coincidentally.

Why did the Leafs do this? The same reason the Hurricanes took Patrick Marleau from us. They had a luxury of cap space, and got a first round pick out of it. The Leafs have a luxury of money, and we’re getting a fourth round pick and a problem off of our hands.

That problem is Garret Sparks. Not so much a headcase problem, but he wasn’t exactly a good backup option for the Leafs, and with Hutchinson and the recently PTOd Michal Neuvirth, the writing was on the wall that Sparks was probably not going to be on the team next year.

Is there a problem with this deal? Not really. Maybe Dubas could’ve got more for Sparks and a bad contract, but this doesn’t hurt the team in any significant degree.