The way you have it written, $cleaned just gets set to the # of substitutions that occurred. See this example: 
#!/usr/bin/env perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use feature 'say';

my $string = "This     is        a string with   variable     numbers 
+  of    spaces.";
say "original: $string";
my $number_of_substitutions = $string =~ s|\s{2,}| |g;
say "cleaned:  $string";
say "# of substitutions: $number_of_substitutions";

__END__
original: This     is        a string with   variable     numbers   of
+    spaces.
cleaned:  This is a string with variable numbers of spaces.
# of substitutions: 6

[download]
One alternative for you would be: 
my $cleaned = $token->as_is;
$cleaned =~ s/\s{2,}/ /g;  # I took out the /s modifier. I thought it 
+was only for transliteration (e.g., $cleaned =~ tr/ //s).

[download]
A second alternative, if you are using 5.14+, is non-destructive substitution (with the /r modifier): 
my $cleaned = $token->as_is =~ s/\s{2,}/ /gr;

[download]

In reply to Re: passing token output to a variable by frozenwithjoy
in thread passing token output to a variable by SilverShadow

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