Brophy on Leafs: Contract conundrums

Among the many things on Brian Burke’s plate these days is the fact he has to re-sign a couple of his team’s better players — left winger Clarke MacArthur and defenceman Luke Schenn.

With the trade deadline less than two weeks away and the Toronto Maple Leafs general manager furiously trying to reshape his disappointing team, contract talks with MacArthur and Schenn are likely backburner issues for Burke. However, he’ll need to decide at some point if he really wants to keep them which, based on their consistent play this season, he likely will.

Which begs the next question: How much does he pay them?

Both MacArthur and Schenn have been pleasing stories on a team that has had few this season.

MacArthur, playing on his third team in two seasons, is enjoying a career year having tied his single-season high with 17 goals and having established a new career best for points with 45. Nobody in the world would have ever guessed he’d lead the team in scoring, but there he is at the top of the heap ahead of Phil Kessel, Mikhail Grabovski and Tomas Kaberle.

MacArthur made a big splash early, scoring in each of his first four games with Toronto — a total of five goals in four games — and had seven goals in the team’s first 11 games. Then he hit a bump in the road. The 6-foot, 191-pound Lloydminster, AB, native went 14 games without a goal, scored two in the next game and then was held goalless for 10. Since then he has been fairly consistent, although he hasn’t scored in his last four games.

Schenn, in his third NHL season and just 21-years old, has enjoyed a nice bounce-back year. The Saskatoon, SK, native surprised many by making the Maple Leafs as a teenager, a move that in retrospect might not have been such a great decision by the Leafs brass, and gave a decent account of himself even if it was clear there was still plenty of room for development.

Last season, though, Schenn looked lost. He appeared slow, not nearly as physical as he was as a rookie, and even though his numbers went up (from two goals to five; 14 points to 17), the perception was he had taken a step back.

This year, playing on a team that has a number of underachievers on defence, Scheen has been good to very good most nights, logging an average of 22:31 in ice time. That’s a huge leap from the 16:53 he played last season.

So, the question remains, how long does Burke sign these guys up for and for how much? As good as both have played this season, one could easily make the case neither is a frontline player. On a good team MacArthur is probably a third-liner and Schenn is a No. 4 or No. 5 defenceman.

That must be what the Atlanta Thrashers thought last summer when they walked away from a one-year, $2.4-million contract that MacArthur won in arbitration. They let him walk for free and MacArthur signed a one-year deal with the Maple Leafs that pays him $1.1 million. Schenn, on the final year of his entry level contract, is paid $875,000.

Too often teams fall in love with their own players and wind up overpaying them only to regret it later. That was certainly the case in Edmonton after the Oilers made it to the Stanley Cup final in 2005-06. The Oilers rewarded hard-working centre Shawn Horcoff with a six-year deal worth $33 million and a yearly $5.5-million cap hit. Horcoff had played wonderfully for the Cinderella Oilers in the ’05-06 playoffs, but he was in no way worth the money the Oilers tossed his way.

Perhaps the best example of a team falling in love with one of its own and vastly overpaying him is the New York Islanders and goalie Rick DiPietro. They gave the unproven stopper a whopping 15-year deal worth $67.5 million (annual cap hit of $4.5 million) and have lived to regret it. DiPietro is injury prone and isn’t likely to be still playing when the deal runs out.

There is no question MacArthur and Schenn have earned raises. The trick for Burke and the Maple Leafs will be to keep things in perspective when it comes time to re-sign them.