Leafs Sign MacArthur

The Toronto Maple Leafs announced on Saturday afternoon that they have signed unrestricted free agent forward Clarke MacArthur to a new 1-year deal, reportedly worth $1.1 million.

MacArthur split his 2010 season between the Buffalo Sabres and the Atlanta Thrashers, playing 81 games in the season and picking up 16 goals and 19 assists for 35 points.  MacArthur was in a deadline day deal to the Southeast Division squad, in order to clear up some salary cap room for another signing for the Sabres.

Overall, MacArthur has been toiling around the NHL for a few years, mostly in and out of the Sabres line-up, but couldn't find a great deal of consistency in their line-up.  Looking at where MacArthur slots in according to points last year, he brings some much needed depth to the Maple Leafs forward ranks and at a reasonable cost to boot.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Phil Kessel	Tomas Kaberle	Jonas Gustavsson
Kris Versteeg	Dion Phaneuf	J-S Giguere
Nikolai Kulemin	Francois Beauchemin
Clarke MacArthur	Luke Schenn
Mikhail Grabovski	Carl Gunnarsson
Colby Armstrong	Jeff Finger
Tyler Bozak	Brett Lebda
Fredrik Sjostrom	Mike Komisarek
Mike Brown
Colton Orr

According to my list, the team listed above with 11 forwards, eight defense, two goalies, a buyout and a cap overage penalty now have an annual cap hit of $60 million, which is $600,000 over top of the cap ceiling. Without a deal that sent Tomas Kaberle out of town, the Leafs will have to do some clever bookkeeping to make this work for them, especially when they need another forward to help fill a fourth line, unless they are going to run with an extra defenseman or possibly move one of their d-men up for a game.   In theory, the Leafs could run with a line-up close to this, drop a defenseman down to the minors and get going, but the management of the Leafs have noted that they want to be more competitive now and I find it hard to believe that this roster is what they are thinking about going forward with.

MacArthur has always been one of those bubble guys that some of the fantasy publications have been keeping in their back pocket as a guy who could possibly break out and then he would fall behind the curve in Buffalo and only figure into a few games. Well, now that he has seen Buffalo and Atlanta, played 81 games and moved to a Toronto team that is desperate for some good minutes up front, this might finally be his chance to excel as a forward. The Hockey News has him pegged for another 35-point season, but that was supposed to be with the Thrashers. The Leafs may struggle to win some games, but they should find some goals here and there, bumping up the numbers of whoever is on the first and second lines. I'll bump MacArthur up a bit, making him a little bit of a sleeper, but I won't go overboard with him, since he still plays in Toronto now.