Leafs Nation continues to grow restless and awaiting Brian Burke’s moves to upgrade the Maple Leafs. The club did not dive headlong into the free agent pool yesterday, signing only depth forward Jay McClement and minor league defenseman Mike Kostka, but that has been standard operating procedure for the Leafs GM for years.
“I believe our group(GM’s) makes more mistakes on July 1, then we do all the rest of the year combined. I think we hand out contracts with unrealistic values and unrealistic term. I think these are things when you’re in a hard cap system that bites you right in the butt at some point. “
Burke reemphasized the areas in which he wants to improve his club before next season and believes that they will be answered more in the trade market than via free agency.
“We need to get bigger, we’re still looking to solve or upgrade the goaltending situation, we’re still looking at a center or upgrade at center if we can…..that solution may be internal, it may be one of the Marlies players, but were not done yet. This is a starting point. As I said about the draft, this is a chain of events that goes on in the summer and I'm not discouraged at all. I felt all along we’d have to address these things through trade and that's how we're going to have to do them.”
The club lost winger Joey Crabb in free agency, as he signed a one year, one-way deal with the Washington Capitals for $950,000. The 29 year old Alaska native scored for 11 goals last season, but with a number of young players on the Toronto Marlies expected to push for jobs with the big club next fall, it was expected that he would take his services elsewhere.
Toronto may make some significant moves throughout the week, as other clubs will endeavor to address their needs after missing out on prominent free agents. With the addition of James Van Riemsdyk, it is possible that either Clarke MacArthur or restricted free agent Nikolai Kulemin could be swapped, it is also possible that players like Tim Connolly or Matthew Lombardi could receive interest as they are in the last year of their contracts and could fit better in another system.
Continue to check back throughout the day for the latest updates.
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