Three stray thoughts on a Tuesday

It’s a real nice day out today and, to be quite honest, I don’t want to spend it inside blogging, so I’ll throw together a few items for your daily consumption. Today’s a good day to opinion on all things David Clarkson, Tyler Bozak and Leo Komarov.

I don’t know whether the Leafs have interest in David Clarkson or not, but after trading Matt Frattin and likely losing Clarke MacArthur, the Leafs are going to need another winger to fit into the Top Six. Not that Frattin or MacArthur spent a whole lot of time up there last season, but the Leafs suddenly went from being very strong and wing to somewhat thin.

Now, there’s been talk in Toronto about David Clarkson. Not only would he bring scoring punch, allegedly, but also the size and toughness that the Leafs desperately need. Somehow, I doubt this. I think teams make a lot of bad mistakes in free agency, giving long-term deals to players that can’t possibly live up to expectations, and you’d prefer your team to take a seat on the bigger names during the UFA period and concentrating on the value signings to shore up the depth positions.

Because there’s always the small detail of what a UFA costs:

Dreger is quite involved in the hockey world, and while I can’t see a team giving out maximum term and north of $6-million per season, I think that Clarkson gets a lot of money to set him up for life during this period. He will assuredly disappoint, as general managers looking for reinforcements seem to forget that by the time players are UFA age, they’ve past their scoring peaks.

There is a much cheaper option out there that brings to the Leafs what I think David Clarkson would. Since our mystery player is 26 years old, let’s go back to the time David Clarkson was 26 years old and look at the career stats for those two side-by-side.

Here is height, weight and age, along with career games played:

Here are basic career-to-date goals and points statistics projected over 82 games, coupled with shots per game:

Our mystery player shoots less, but scores a similar number of goals and gets much, much more assists. He’s likely a better playmaker.

Here are even strength scoring rates per 60 minutes. Again, our mystery player is better. He doesn’t see a lot of powerplay time on his current team:

And lastly, we have Corsi statistics, which also tell us something about a players defensive game. The first column, CF%, tells us the percentage of total shot attempts for a player’s team when he was on the ice. TM CF% tells us the average Corsi % of his teammates, when they weren’t on the ice with that player. Opp CF% is the same with opponents:

I wasn’t expecting our mystery player to be that high, but he’s fared well for himself, with teammates that don’t crack an even 50%, and against opponents that are slightly better than 50%. Clarkson is a plus-player, but he had better teammates to work with and slightly easier opposition.

Clarkson’s ability over our mystery player is his individual shot rate. Team shot rates are higher with our mystery player on the ice than with Clarkson, though.

So I think the Leafs should go with the mystery player. Overall, it’s pretty tough to say that at 26, isn’t a better option.

Apparently Newport Sports, the agency that represents Tyler Bozak, “offered” the Maple Leafs a maximum eight-year term. That’s per Darren Dreger, who is Dave Nonis’ cousin.

Obviously, that is not very smart. It goes without saying that the Leafs need to simply sever ties with Bozak. While he probably has some value as a third line centre, he wouldn’t be able to play in that capacity with the Leafs since there is just too much history with him at that position.

Nonis still hasn’t broken off talks with Bozak, unless he is just doing the right things to not burn bridges with Newport Sports. Until Bozak signs on the dotted line with another team, there’s still a possibility that he is again, the No. 1 centreman for the Leafs next year despite having no spectacular faceoff ability and not only has no chemistry with Phil Kessel, is actually a drag on his overall production.

I guess it’s official for Uncle Leo, the second piece officially gone from the Maple Leafs formerly expansive cast of depth players. The Leafs retain his rights for just one more year before he hits age 27 and becomes an unrestricted free agent. That’s very soon.

 

The mystery player is Nikolai Kulemin, by the way.