The Toronto Maple Leafs are out there making moves to, even in the middle of July when most people want to be anywhere but the office:

The Vegas Golden Knights are in cap hell and it’s only their second summer as a franchise. The Toronto Maple Leafs, saviours of the NHL, are swooping in to help the newest team out (aside from the hundreds of millions in transfer payments they give out to those lesser franchises) by bringing back former Toronto Maple Leaf David Clarkson.

Now Clarkson won’t play an NHL game, he hasn’t since shortly after being traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for Nathan Horton. This is just a way to increase their LTIR cap room to help give them more cap space to sign Marner? The CBA makes me go cross-eyed.

CBA 102 - LTIR and You

The Maple Leafs also received a fourth round pick and are sending long time goalie project Garrett Sparks to the Knights. My instant analysis of this trade is to be very confused.

This is the final year of both Clarkson and Horton being on LTIR for the Maple Leafs, for a combined cap hit of $10.55 million.

Update on this, Cap Friendly hath spoken.

Oh, and then there’s this:

Leafs GM Dave Nonis noted on Friday after signing the Clarkson contract that the term was steep but said that was the price of doing business in free agency.

”I’m not worried about six or seven right now,” Nonis said of the term of the deal. “I’m worried about one. And Year 1, I know we’re going to have a very good player. I believe that he’s got a lot of good years left in him.”

Plan the parade because Wendel Clarkson is back baby!

Maple Leafs Trades