Toronto Maple Leafs right wing David Clarkson fights against Tampa Bay Lightning right wing B.J. Crombeen at Air Canada Centre.Tom Szczerbowski
When your best day on the job is your first day, there is simply no way there'll be a fond goodbye at the end.
"For me personally, I think the highlight was that first day, when I signed that piece of paper and to see the look on my dad's face and how proud he was," now former Toronto Maple Leafs winger David Clarkson said Friday after 118 games with the team. "Not just that I was in the NHL, but I was able to sign with a team like the Toronto Maple Leafs, and to be a part of something that my dad raised me cheering for as a young boy."
At the time, July 5, 2013, Maple Leafs management, fans and a good part of the media were just as happy Clarkson left the New Jersey Devils to sign a seven-year, $36.75-million (U.S.) contract with the team he loved growing up in Mimico, a west-Toronto waterfront community.
As any Leafs fan knows, it was all downhill from there for the veteran right winger. Clarkson was supposed to bring grit plus a scoring touch to a team with a few too many fancy skaters on the forward lines. Instead he got off on the wrong note when he jumped off the bench and into the middle of a spat involving star winger Phil Kessel in a preseason game. That cost Clarkson a 10-game suspension to start the 2013-14 season, and his game never got back on the rails.
By the time Leafs general manager David Nonis and his counterpart with the Columbus Blue Jackets, Jarmo Kekalainen, stunned the NHL with a trade for forward Nathan Horton that solved the biggest contract problem for both teams, Clarkson had just 26 points in 118 games with the Leafs. There was never any sign of the banger who one season scored 30 goals, mostly on the power play, for the Devils.
Clarkson, 30, declined to go out slinging shots at the Maple Leafs, aside from saying it was hard on him and his family to read some of the things written and said about him by the Toronto media. "I don't regret playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs or signing there," he said. "To get to wear that jersey was proud for me."
However, Clarkson's agent, Pat Morris, later told Toronto radio station TSN 1050 that the criticism wore on Clarkson much harder than he let on. Clarkson did mention the lack of time he was given on the Leafs power play, implying coaches Randy Carlyle and Peter Horachek never used him properly. "The role I played in New Jersey was different than the role I played in Toronto," he said. "I hope to get back to that and playing the way I can in Columbus."
Maybe he will. But in the meantime, Maple Leafs fans are celebrating the fact the five years left on Clarkson's contract after this season, at an annual salary-cap hit of $5.25-million, are off the team's books. As well, it looks as if Horton, 29, will never play again because of a degenerative back condition, which means his cap hit of $5.3-million over the same period of time will not count on the payroll if he goes on long-term injured reserve and the Leafs spend to the cap limit.
That will give Nonis more room to spend in his rebuilding plan, something just about everyone thought was impossible a couple of days ago.