Confirmed with Link: Canes Sign Defenseman Jake Gardiner to 4 Year Contract

[AD Skinner]

With Faulk there was the sense (to me at least) that he was just deployed over his head, especially on the power play. Not his fault he was getting more minutes than his play warranted. Gardiner is getting bottom pair and second unit pp time, and not showing any reason to increase that

 

[Svechhammer]

Gardiner has been our worst defenseman this year and it's really not even close. It's bad enough that he contributes little to nothing defensively, but he's been completely absent offensively and now he's taking multiple bad penalties putting us in a further bind.

I wouldn't mind it as much if he did anything on offense but he's horrible there as well. He was supposed to help out the PP and we have a top 10 PP in spite of his lack of contribution. That's the most damning part about his game right now.

 

[MinJaBen]

So.....

....how do we get out of this bad contract? The Borg swung and missed on this one, I think.

 

[CandyCanes]

Note to self. Don't acquire former Toronto Maple Leaf defensemen.

 

[CandyCanes]

I know +/- can be a dumb stat to look at. But Gardiner is a -17 this year (4th worst in the NHL), my gawd. 2nd worst on the Canes is Nino at -6. Would like to see Gardiner get benched for a game or two, hopefully wake him up.

 

[bleedgreen]

What bugs me is we took an obvious strength in five top four defenseman and now have three. The return on Faulk wasn’t bad but the DeHaan trade was awful. If you’re going to turn such a strength into something, it should give you more than Bokk and a season of Edmunson.

I know we took the money and put it into other contracts and that kinda counts as a trade but still...

We don’t have any real big strengths over other teams anymore. Defense was our thing. Now we have three really good guys and then a stack of guys anyone could have.

 

[Sens1Canes2]

What bugs me is we took an obvious strength in five top four defenseman and now have three. The return on Faulk wasn’t bad but the DeHaan trade was awful. If you’re going to turn such a strength into something, it should give you more than Bokk and a season Edmunson.

I know we took the money and put it into other contracts and that kinda counts as a trade but still...

We don’t have any real big strengths over other teams anymore. Defense was our thing. Now we have three really good guys and then a stack of guys anyone could have.

You’ve banged that drum the whole time and I’ve been right there with you. 3 years of CDH versus 4 years of Gardiner .... is not looking good right now.
I will say, if you look at posts from even the beginning of November, the consensus was Gardiner was doing “fine.” But fine at $4m on the 3rd pairing certainly leaves room for improvement, and what we’ve gotten has been the opposite.
I’ll reiterate again - I just don’t understand the CDH move if you were hellbent on trading Faulk and not bringing in a comparable (read - bona fide) top 4 guy.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

Yeah, I get the notion that we needed to move 1 guy as we had 5 top 4 D with Slavin, Pesce, Hamilton, Faulk and CDH. I'm surprised at how bad Gardiner has been though. I watched him a lot last year and he wasn't close to this ineffective last year. I thought he'd at least help hold serve, but he hasn't even come close. And Edmundson just isn't very good IMO.

I really thought Gardiner - Pesce would be an effective pairing, but right now, Gardiner - "anyone" isn't a good pairing.

 

[emptyNedder]

What is most concerning is that Hamilton isn't likely to continue on a 80+ point pace. If Hamilton slows down offensively and his defensive commitment follows—as it seemed to last season when he struggled—then the D has gone from four reliable defenders (Pesce, Slavin, de Haan, Faulk) to two. The schedule for the next three weeks could get ugly if the Canes give up easy goals.

 

[Sens1Canes2]

Yeah, I get the notion that we needed to move 1 guy as we had 5 top 4 D with Slavin, Pesce, Hamilton, Faulk and CDH. I'm surprised at how bad Gardiner has been though. I watched him a lot last year and he wasn't close to this ineffective last year. I thought he'd at least help hold serve, but he hasn't even come close. And Edmundson just isn't very good IMO.

I really thought Gardiner - Pesce would be an effective pairing, but right now, Gardiner - "anyone" isn't a good pairing.

Oh I’m surprised too. However, we are hockey fans, and not in pro scouting departments. It’s really important not to make a 4 year $16 million mistake ESPECIALLY when you hit on the exact same contract the year before only to trade it.

 

[bleedgreen]

You’ve banged that drum the whole time and I’ve been right there with you. 3 years of CDH versus 4 years of Gardiner .... is not looking good right now.
I will say, if you look at posts from even the beginning of November, the consensus was Gardiner was doing “fine.” But fine at $4m on the 3rd pairing certainly leaves room for improvement, and what we’ve gotten has been the opposite.
I’ll reiterate again - I just don’t understand the CDH move if you were hellbent on trading Faulk and not bringing in a comparable (read - bona fide) top 4 guy.

It was the Marleau trade. We paid four million or whatever for a mid round first rounder at best, and six million in cap space. Then it was time to go shopping. That makes sense.

I’ve tried to give them some credit on the switch from Dehaan to Gardiner because it probably was a Tulsky analytics thing and I don’t want to be too old school about all that. Gardiner should be the quicker skater with the better ability to move the puck while helping the pp. For whatever reasons, presumably injury Gardiner doesn’t have the skating and doesn’t bring any of his presumed positives. Even if he played great there would be a debate about him vs DeHaan but now we don’t have the great defense DeHaan brought and we didn’t add any of Gardiner’s positives either.

We don’t miss Faulk on the pp but we do miss his overall grit and defensive work down low. We were never going to pay that contract (thank god) so it’s fine he’s gone. The whole DeHaan/Marleau chain of events was a mess imo. That left side should have DeHaan with Fleury or Gardiner behind him. We’d have a legit top four.

Now we’re going to be testing TD’s “you can just buy defense” theory again. Or overpaying Edmunson to stay when we need better than Edmunson in the top four.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

It was the Marleau trade. We paid four million or whatever for a mid round first rounder at best, and six million in cap space. Then it was time to go shopping. That makes sense.

I’ve tried to give them some credit on the switch from Dehaan to Gardiner because it probably was a Tulsky analytics thing and I don’t want to be too old school about all that. Gardiner should be the quicker skater with the better ability to move the puck while helping the pp. For whatever reasons, presumably injury Gardiner doesn’t have the skating and doesn’t bring any of his presumed positives. Even if he played great there would be a debate about him vs DeHaan but now we don’t have the great defense DeHaan brought and we didn’t add any of Gardiner’s positives either.

We don’t miss Faulk on the pp but we do miss his overall grit and defensive work down low. We were never going to pay that contract (thank god) so it’s fine he’s gone. The whole DeHaan/Marleau chain of events was a mess imo. That left side should have DeHaan with Fleury or Gardiner behind him. We’d have a legit top four.

Now we’re going to be testing TD’s “you can just buy defense” theory again. Or overpaying Edmunson to stay when we need better than Edmunson in the top four.

I hope we don't even underpay him to stay.

 

[Svechhammer]

We should have 4 too d-men but Gardiner has badly regressed this year to legitimate bad defenseman. Not many saw that coming. At worst, he should be upper tier 2nd pair defenseman but he's lower tier 3rd.

I don't fault the Canes for getting him in FA. It wasn't a bad signing at the time, and should be at worst a serviceable player now. Nobody saw his game completely collapsing like it has.

The CDH trade still looks bad, and we'll hurt for that one for a while. I still like Edmundson as a 3rd pairing d-man and Fleury has been pretty good. Eventually we just need to scratch Gardiner and go with the best players we actually have.

If anything it reminds me a little of the Oleg Tverdovsky signing back in 2005. A guy who should have been good and an impactful player for us, but ended up scratched by the end of the year and playoffs.

 

[DougieSmash]

He won't start next season here if we don't see progress in next few months. But it's still early. Faulk has been very bad for Blues, too.

 

[spockBokk]

He needs to play with Pesce to be effective, imho, but to do that, he needs to raise his current level of play a whole, whole lot. His confidence is probably completely shot at this point, and perhaps being a scratch for a game or 2 might give him a chance to reset.

I still think he’s playing hurt. If so, I’d hope at some point they shut him down and either get him the surgery he needs or keep him out til he’s 100% again. If they’re insistent on an Edmundson-Pesce pairing moving forward, having Fleury/Forsling/Claesson/Bean play the left side on the 3rd pairing can’t be much worse than Gardiner’s current suckfest.

 

[dogbazinho]

I think Gardner's play will improve and his contract will look better than Nino's and Staal's when's all said and done.

 

[My Special Purpose]

I think Gardner's play will improve and his contract will look better than Nino's and Staal's when's all said and done.

Dude, stop it. Gardiner is awful and needs to be killed. Two months is more than enough time to make a judgement about his Carolina career. Your rational take will not be tolerated well around here. And don't even think of suggesting there are other factors at work in the Canes shaky play of late outside of Gardiner. Jeez. Some people.

Am I doing this right?

 

[Canes]

I think Gardner's play will improve and his contract will look better than Nino's and Staal's when's all said and done.

That still means nothing. That could happen and he could still be our worst d-man. He's simply not very good. His skating has noticeably dropped off. I've seen smoother skating d-men on 3rd pairings in the ECHL.

 

[Primetime8]

Comments about Gardner in November, 2019 = Comments about Hamilton in November, 2018

 

[Joe McGrath]

That still means nothing. That could happen and he could still be our worst d-man. He's simply not very good. His skating has noticeably dropped off. I've seen smoother skating d-men on 3rd pairings in the ECHL.

If he improves it will be because he gets his skating back. If he doesn’t, he’s not improving.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

Dude, stop it. Gardiner is awful and needs to be killed. Two months is more than enough time to make a judgement about his Carolina career. Your rational take will not be tolerated well around here. And don't even think of suggesting there are other factors at work in the Canes shaky play of late outside of Gardiner. Jeez. Some people.

Am I doing this right?

Bookmarked for the next time you complain about a player, coach or GM.

 

[sheriff bart]

Gardener has been a major disappointment so far, but Hamilton was looked at almost the same way last year this time. Hopefully, it’s also an injury that will get better

 

[Svechhammer]

Comments about Gardner in November, 2019 = Comments about Hamilton in November, 2018

It's not an overreaction to say he's been horrific this year. It's also true he could bounce back in the second half.

Not sure why saying either is worthy of ridicule right now.

 

[Negan4Coach]

Dude, stop it. Gardiner is awful and needs to be killed. Two months is more than enough time to make a judgement about his Carolina career. Your rational take will not be tolerated well around here. And don't even think of suggesting there are other factors at work in the Canes shaky play of late outside of Gardiner. Jeez. Some people.

Am I doing this right?

YES!! You are doing it right. Fire this weirdo into the sun.

We had a great D last year, for some reason Dundon decided to urinate all over it.

 

[NotOpie]

Apropos of nothing, I thought Fleury's game has really come along. He was pretty damn good last night.