Jake Gardiner 2.0 - More beast than man now, I am afraid...

[Judas Tavares]

Frustrating to watch an amazing defender haha. You people sometimes. He's an amazing hockey player.

Yes, watching mistakes can be frustrating sometimes. I'm not saying he's bad. Your love for him is so strong though, any small criticism you get too defensive. The man makes some mistakes, he's not perfect. Doesn't mean he's crap. He makes me scratch my head sometimes. Doens't mean he's crap. He's very good. But your obsession for him seems to make you misunderstand. Don't let your Rielly vs. Gardiner insecurity get in the way of viewing a player objectively (ps. don't freak out, I too agree Gardiner is better than Rielly).

 

[mapleleaf979]

Jake Gardiner is one of the best skaters I've ever seen for the Maple Leafs.

Reilly is a better skater than Gardiner but does not have Gardiner's anticipation of the D reading him or the creativity. Gardiner has the highest IQ of any dman on this team with the puck on his stick because of how well he disguises what he wants to do. If he keeps this up he will command 6-7 million in 2 years.

 

[ErnieLeafs]

Shades of brilliance, and lapses of judgement. Feast and famine: The Jake Gardiner Story.

 

[TMLeafs17]

I’d rather have #1D Jake in the offensive/neutral zone with #5D gaffes than #3D all the time.

IMO he’s progressing amazingly!

 

[Raym11]

I love Gardiner, in my opinion he's probably our most dynamic defenseman. He has everything in his skill set. He's just so inconsistent and prone to making mistakes.


Super enigmatic player, but i enjoy having him on the team, as scary as he can be he also comes through and takes chances other guys won't. Unfortunately i don't think he'll ever pull it all together and cut down on the bad decisions/mistakes, that's just who he is at this point.


Everytime he has the puck, something is going to happen. It's never boring. It's just always 50/50 on what team benefits

Having a guy like Gardiner on your team is never a bad thing, and he's always going to have his bad moments which means he should have a relatively cheaper cap hit when it comes time to talk contracts.

 

[diceman934]

Jake Gardiner was amazing tonight. Take off the hate glasses he was constantly pushing the pace and his goal and assist were beauties. Outside of the 3 kids and Anderson hes our most important player.

LOL he was good offensively but not so good defensively and gave away the puck like it was Christmas and he was giving gifts.
His pass was a beauty and his goal a great shot but overall he struggled with passing and reads.

 

[Battle Lin]

for sure our best D in the offensive zone but with our offense looking like this, man if i had to pick and add another jake, z, or hainsey to my team, give me a zaitsev or hainsey like D who are both stronger in the defensive zone...man we gotta start defending with we wanna be serious

 

[thewave]

ITT: It is hard to admit you are wrong. Jake is no longer trade fodder. Jake is no longer less than Morgan. Still has every little mistake magnified and disected.

Reality... I was just right and ahead of the curve to identify Jakes steps taken in becoming a special player.

BTW: I could pick and rip apart almost everyone on the team last night for mistakes while they were collapsing. One of the worst being Marner but you won't highlight or make mention of that. Funny stuff.

 

[thewave]

for sure our best D in the offensive zone but with our offense looking like this, man if i had to pick and add another jake, z, or hainsey to my team, give me a zaitsev or hainsey like D who are both stronger in the defensive zone...man we gotta start defending with we wanna be serious

Want the truth about what happened last night. You guys are quick to criticize me but let out some real knee slappers...

They came out, they shot their bolt, emptied the tank in the first. The adrenaline wore off and they were one part over confident and one part depleted.

Its a nothing burger one off and means nothing at all.

 

[too_long]

Reilly is a better skater than Gardiner but does not have Gardiner's anticipation of the D reading him or the creativity. Gardiner has the highest IQ of any dman on this team with the puck on his stick because of how well he disguises what he wants to do. If he keeps this up he will command 6-7 million in 2 years.

He is good at disguising his high IQ as well.

 

[thewave]

He is good at disguising his high IQ as well.

The IQ was some false bs concocted by Jake haters to go along with their stupid Jake mistakes crap. They dont know what they are talking about and all look silly together now and use more explain aways to save face.

He has always been a high IQ player. Years ago I said... I think Jakes problem is he is too smart and he thinks about to many things too quickly, under pressure he overthinks and commits errors. His general game has been sound for years.

 

[ToneDog]

With Babs unleashing Rielly offensively this year, he will show that he is clearly our #1D soon.

 

[Eb]

With Babs unleashing Rielly offensively this year, he will show that he is clearly our #1D soon.

Lol. I'll be waiting.

 

[ErnieLeafs]

Jake is roulette doritos. Sometimes night-to-night, sometimes shift-to-shift. He put on a masterclass at times last night, then went full shambles at others.

 

[bunjay]

The balance of Gardiner's ups and downs is more goals for the Leafs than the other guys. He's our poor-man's Karlsson, and believe it or not there are still people who think Karlsson is a glorified winger.

In the past 2 games Gardiner has made 2 beautiful passes for tap-in goals and scored an unassisted rush. The number of other d-men on the Leafs who do this for us is zero.

 

[ErnieLeafs]

The balance of Gardiner's ups and downs is more goals for the Leafs than the other guys. He's our poor-man's Karlsson, and believe it or not there are still people who think Karlsson is a glorified winger.

In the past 2 games Gardiner has made 2 beautiful passes for tap-in goals and scored an unassisted rush. The number of other d-men on the Leafs who do this for us is zero.

I think most would just like to see him defend better. He does some baffling things under pressure, and he could have easily cost more than he contributed last night.

Clean that nonsense up, and we'd be a good bit better.

 

[bunjay]

I think most would just like to see him defend better. He does some baffling things under pressure, and he could have easily cost more than he contributed last night.

Clean that nonsense up, and we'd be a good bit better.

Of course, but you could say the same of any defenseman.

If he cleaned up his mistakes he'd be a top D-man in the league. If he never does, he's still a good asset for a good price and great entertainment value on top of that.

 

[ErnieLeafs]

Of course, but you could say the same of any defenseman.

If he cleaned up his mistakes he'd be a top D-man in the league. If he never does, he's still a good asset for a good price and great entertainment value on top of that.

Certainly, but we SHOULD demand better from everyone.

 

[moon111]

Many were happy we just got Lupul for Beauchemin.

 

[ShaneFalco]

I wasn't always a fan of Gardiner, but he's won me over.
Yes he makes some bon-headed plays sometimes, but any d-man under a microscope and you could say the same thing.

 

[TheMadHatTrick]

I didn't see last night's game so I can't comment on that specifically, but it seems like Jake is judged according to different standards by some of our fans compared to other players on the Leafs or even on other teams.

But as Bunjay said, you can literally dissect and criticize any aspect of a players game if you look hard enough. Jake has his flaws and limitations (what player doesn't?) but overall he's a net positive for us. If he played a mistake free game (which I don't think any player does) he'd probably be a top 5 top 10 defenseman.

I was watching San Jose the other day and Burns, one of the best offensive D men in the league had quite a few gaffes including one that lead directly to a goal.

Now it's 100% fair to criticize a bad play, but I don't see any threads dissecting when Rielly continues to make bad reads in the defensive zone, or panics and mindlessly ices the puck or throws it out of the zone when there are obvious outlets available to transition to offense, or when he keeps shooting the puck into shin pads on offense or misses a coverage on defense. Things that he still often does. With Rielly people for some reason want to focus more on the positive. Not saying we should trash Rielly (who's looked good) but let's just try not to have a double standard.

 

[bunjay]

I was watching San Jose the other day and Burns, one of the best offensive D men in the league had quite a few gaffes including one that lead directly to a goal.

You watch any great defenseman that gets a lot of icetime and handles the puck a lot. you see giveaways and missed reads and imperfect gap control and such. I wonder if dedicated fans of every team are hypercritical of their best players. Our goalie should never allow a goal he could have had, our forwards should always have better finish, our defensemen should always make fewer mistakes.

To be fair Gardiner makes the kind of mistakes that can boggle the mind, especially because we know how good he can be. But he makes remarkably few of the subtler, more common mistakes, doesn't take many penalties, is quite effective overall and still gets shit on constantly.

Now it's 100% fair to criticize a bad play, but I don't see any threads dissecting when Rielly continues to make bad reads in the defensive zone, or panics and mindlessly ices the puck or throws it out of the zone when there are obvious outlets available to transition to offense, or when he keeps shooting the puck into shin pads on offense or misses a coverage on defense. Things that he still often does. With Rielly people for some reason want to focus more on the positive. Not saying we should trash Rielly (who's looked good) but let's just try not to have a double standard.

Criticism of Rielly, even if it's reasonable and couched in praise, gets shut down on this forum because "he's still young" etc. That's fine, but if you actually compare their experience it's not far apart. Gardiner has 419 NHL games, Rielly has 318. Their age difference is not really relevant at this point. And I think it's safe to say that Gardiner is on an obvious upward trajectory, and to me it's not as clear where Rielly is going. We all want Rielly to turn into a #1 d-man, but you don't get to assume that will happen because he grew up a Leafs fan and we drafted him fifth overall. And you don't get to assume that Gardiner isn't getting better because you made up your mind on that years ago.

 

[7even]

I think most would just like to see him defend better. He does some baffling things under pressure, and he could have easily cost more than he contributed last night.

Clean that nonsense up, and we'd be a good bit better.

He also makes better plays under pressure than any other defenseman on the team.

 

[SpeakerForTheDead]

How many points do you guys see him getting this year?

I could see him putting up 50 plus.

 

[34]

I was always a Gardiner fan. His hockey iq is second to none and he is one of the smoothest skaters in the nhl.

#1 D.