toronto maple leafs gm
(blaring trumpets sound)
BRIAN BURKE!!!
(you may all rise from your knees now)
signed the ever pugnacious, testosterone-laden, clarke macarthur to a 1-yr, $1.1m contract the other day...now that the dust has settled, just how much belligerence does this 5'11, 190 lb, truculent winger bring to the leafs?
according to one leaf blogger (mike "in buffalo",) macarthur has "significant offensive skills" and "could be a steal" for the leafs...he points out the short-comings of the buffalo sabres organization in "mac's" career by saying, among other things, "he never seemed to get a steady amount of ice-time" for the sabres, and continues by saying,"[he] played full-time in buffalo and would occasionally play on one of the top-two lines"...
as for the reason for him not getting top-six minutes, head coach lindy ruff would "relegate him to less ice-time and responsibility when he faltered on defense"...
forget the fact that "mac" had about as many opportunities to solidify his spot as #2 lw as he had opportunities to score score with gaping nets in front of him...and there were many, yet he has yet to crack the 20 goal mark...or the fact that he and danny paille (who was also traded last season) were two sides of the same coin--mac scoring more, but being a defensive liability, paille being defensively sound, but couldn't score...forget the fact that on the left-side, thomas vanek is king and neither could supplant jochen hecht as #2 lw, even though hecht had the worst season of his career in 08/9...just blame it on ruff...
another reason the sabres let this "gem" go, mike in buffalo said, "was [that] due to macarthur's rfa status at the end of the 09/10 season and buffalo's notorious tight-fisted reputation, the sabres traded macarthur to atlanta at the march trade deadline to make room for raffi torres"
ummm, right...the sabres gave up a player who was making $1.4m so they could bring in a player who was making $2.75m...had nothing to do with the fact that torres was bigger (6' 223 lb,) more experienced, had hit 20+ goals twice in his career (career-high, 27,) and already had 19 goals on the year (which matched his previous season)...
nope, the "tight-fisted" sabres were already looking for ways to save in the '10 off-season...it had nothing to do with the fact that mac was "smallish," lacked pugnacity, testosterone, truculence and belligerence (didn't even have the spunk that tyler ennis, nathan gerbe and former sabre tim kennedy had) and was as inconsistent as drew stafford...nor did it have anything to do with the fact that macarthur could never slow down the game enough to crack 20 goals in the 14-17mins of ice-time (including 2nd-unit pp-time)...16 and 17 were his goal totals, more towards 15, mike, than "close to 20" you mentioned...
rave on, leafs-nation (snicker, snicker)...
good luck, mac
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