The Toronto Sun's Steve Simmons offers a little less time to hockey notes in the middle of the summer, and aside from his weekly anti-Corsi rant, here's the gist of his hockey commentary from his Sunday notebook:

What happens if David Clarkson is as inept in Year 2 with the Leafs as he was in Year 1? Do they want a $5-million player on their fourth line (who isn’t Mike Richards)? Or will Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment swallow hard and send him to the minors, even if there is very little salary-cap help for doing so. In the end, performance will be up to Clarkson. One NHL scout makes a Michal Handzus comparison to Clarkson: “Los Angeles signed him to a large free-agent contract in ’07. And he sucked the first year. They were kind of frantic about that. But after that, he played OK for them. He really did."

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Still available in free agency: Martin Brodeur, Tim Thomas and Ilya Bryzgalov ... Went over the list of 234 unsigned free agents: The only one I had semi-interest in was Daniel Winnik, banging winger, formerly of the Anaheim Ducks

Simmons continues and discusses his usual myriad of topics...