The Jake Gardiner Situation

[Kiwi]

Keep him then for a playoff push, always need extra D. Not sure how people are so confident in a very young & inexperienced Dermott to gift him a top 4 role......failure would mean a missed deep playoff push and perhaps stunt Dermott’s development of rushed too soon. The Leafs are a developing young team.....not a rebuilding one. Leafs had a great season this year and lost in round one vs a good opponent.....but those young players gained invaluable experience along the way......that will show eventually. Good teams let good players walk for free when they have a shot at a deep run and Leafs had a chance this year.....and they will have a chance for multi more years ahead.

We did that this season

We can't keep bleeding assets and not expect it to harm us when our best players are hitting there primes and we need to put talent around them

 

[Kiwi]

It's not one awful performance. It's a consistent pattern of boneheaded plays and mistakes that repeatedly cost the Leafs, over and over and over again. It just happens that this time, they were actually playing for something when Gardiner screwed up. Again.

But apparently Leaf fans need repeats of this debacle before they realize, like Bryan McCabe, they aren't going to win **** with Jake Gardiner playing significant minutes and screwing up at terrible times...

He makes some mistakes he's not perfect but he's easily our 2nd best D and is carrying his pair whilst doing all the puck moving for the both of them

He's bloody good

 

[LeafsNation75]

Gardiner is definitely worth a 1st round pick with a nice plus on top. Shattenkirk returned like 4 pieces and Gardiner is better defensively and he might actually re-sign with the team that acquires him. Shattenkirk was making a bee line for NYR and everyone knew it.

Besides the Shattenkirk example there is also the Travis Hamonic trade and he still had 3 years left on his contract at the time he was traded, which was for 1st round pick in 2018, 2nd round pick in 2018 and 2nd round pick in 2019.

 

[The Best Leafs Ever]

Just trade him already.

 

[WTFMAN99]

Besides the Shattenkirk example there is also the Travis Hamonic trade and he still had 3 years left on his contract at the time he was traded, which was for 1st round pick in 2018, 2nd round pick in 2018 and 2nd round pick in 2019.

Who needs help at LD?

Winnipeg
Calgary
San Jose
Montreal
New Jersey
St.Louis

Those teams stand out. We'd need a 1st and a prospect off one of them

Minnesota is an option for a trade if they get an extension agreed to prior to the deal.

Gardiner (re-signed) for Brodin is fair IMO .

 

[HandshakeLineRespect]

i'm sure it's because of fair and objective analysis rather than you simply don't like him that you think this

He was third worst in turnovers, fifth worst in differential and is prone to unimaginable mistakes in big moments. The amount of goals against this guy is responsible for is outrageous. He’s too polarizing a figure, he’s on the verge of getting Larry Murphy treatment. Plus he would be 29 when his next contract kicks in. Leafs are set on the left side with dermott and Reilly. Flip Gards for futures you’re gonna need them when everyone else signs big deals. Spend that money on a right shot d. All this is painfully obvious, it’s ridiculous that people want to sign Gards long term and the leafs would be fools to extend him.

 

[moon111]

Supply and demand usually dictates price. Giving a player a limited No-trade clause, as Kessel, Bozak, and JVR decreased their value. If you wanted to deal Bozak and JVR, it had to be done much sooner. Teams that weren't going to make the playoffs weren't about to spend money on Bozak and JVR just to make their draft position worst. How can fans bash players then think other teams want them? Believe it or not, other NHL clubs might know what's up with their value as well. I think potential returns were very optimistic.

As we're seeing, it's very difficult polishing your team into a gemstone. The opposition strikes at any sign of weakness. There isn't a contender out there that will be after Gardiner unless the cost is so insignificant they can't help themselves. He might draw interest from a team like Edmonton that has Darnell Nurse as their highest scoring blueliner who was tied with Phaneuf in points. (69th overall among defensemen) If you want to get rid of Gardiner, I don't know if the return wouldn't end up something like Matt Martin + Jake Gardiner for Milan Lucic and Caleb Jones. No matter what, the Leafs will be stuck with a rough cut stone.

 

[Randy Randerson]

So we’re discussing a few things here:

- Agreed this current core is set to potentially compete for likely years.

- Completely agree build for long term success, don’t build for a flash in the pan.

- Agreed very hard to win the cup, even as the president cup winner.....never mind the rest of the teams.

- JVR/Bozak, I get the sense you didn’t agree with management keeping both players for a playoff run and sooner seen them traded for futures. Maybe I’m reading you wrong on this point. But the Leafs already have top 10 prospect pool and a deep team......you can only stack up the prospects so high before it becomes a waste. I don’t mind the Leafs letting both vets potentially walk, but it’s not a done deal yet. I think management showed moxie keeping them. They rolled the dice at the table and lost........but at least they took a shot. Hindsight is 20/20, it’s easy to criticize them now.......but if they were in the final right now everyone would of said it was a genius move and Shanny has the biggest balls in the Nhl. None of this is a shot at you, just giving my opinion.

- Leaders aren’t born, leadership is learnt through experience. The young core just learnt a great deal in this seven games, people shouldn’t minimize that. I’m old, I’ve failed lots in my life not ashamed to say it and successed even more but stay humble about it. But I’ve learnt “a lot” more from my failures then from my successes.

- So I agree a team can’t throw away assets every year, but I think Lou/Shanny saw this as the year to do it. They saw it as a win/win no matter what happened. Win the cup, great win. Lose in the first round, priceless experience for the young budding core/leaders on the team who gain valuable experience.

- Gardiner/Dermott: Just my personal choice, not saying right or wrong. I would keep Gardiner until you know what you have in Dermott. If Dermott fails (and you traded Gardiner away now) you lose a season and now need a top 4 LHD AND RHD........which is two big pieces to get via trade or FA.

Good chat, cheers!

Bed time for me

I was definitely in the trade camp for JVR/Bozak/Komarov, especially with the depth of NHL ready winger prospects that we have. I think there came a point where the optics were bad to make the moves, I would have done it last summer to steer clear of that potential quagmire...should have been obvious that it could end up that way if the team was in good position come the TDL

agree on leadership and experience, but I think both of those would have happened regardless, I don't think that JVR/Bozak were the difference between playoffs or not this year, maybe seeding but ultimately we didn't get out of the 1st round so I don't think the net gain was much for keeping them, and we could use the 1st+3-4 2nds that those 3 guys would have brought back. Hindsight is 20/20 but I think that's a scenario that was a decent possibility at the TDL as the 1st round opponent for the Leafs was going to be one of two teams that were both better than us, I would have played the odds and saved my bullets

I'm only on board for keeping Gardiner if there's a chance that we re-sign him, otherwise I think Dermott needs to sink or swim because he'll be in that boat in 19/20 when Gardiner is gone anyway. If we hold on Gardiner until December while letting Dermott play tougher minutes, then trade Gardiner if Dermott looks good or re-sign Gardiner if Dermott doesn't then that would make sense to me

I think it looks really good for Dermott though, so I'd be willing to roll the dice at this point

bed time for me too

 

[diceman934]

With who?

It was Rielly-Zaitsev last year a lot, and this year it was Rielly-Hainsey. Year prior to that it was Hunwick-Rielly for reasons.

So many times he played the right side this year. With Haisney, Gardiner, Dermot . With Haisney it was dependent on who they were facing, speedy winger on the right side Rielly played the Right side a lot as Haisney was getting beat wide a lot and struggled as well with getting the puck up ice on his backhand side.

If you watched the games and watched he lined up and played the right side a lot.

In the playoffs last year he played all on the right side.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

He was third worst in turnovers, fifth worst in differential and is prone to unimaginable mistakes in big moments. The amount of goals against this guy is responsible for is outrageous. He’s too polarizing a figure, he’s on the verge of getting Larry Murphy treatment. Plus he would be 29 when his next contract kicks in. Leafs are set on the left side with dermott and Reilly. Flip Gards for futures you’re gonna need them when everyone else signs big deals. Spend that money on a right shot d. All this is painfully obvious, it’s ridiculous that people want to sign Gards long term and the leafs would be fools to extend him.

he has a lot of turnovers because he has the puck all the time. look at a list of the top 20 dman for turnovers and you'll notice they're all relied upon to play a lot of minutes and move the puck, and a lot of them are great defensemen.

it's also disingenuous to only look at the goals against he's been on the ice for. The Leafs still out-possess, out-chance, and out-score the opposition when Gardiner is on the ice. What more do you expect from him?

saying we need RHD is fine, but that doesn't mean we have to urgently get rid of him right now and not even consider keeping him on the team. Offense is at a premium in this league and he can move the puck and rack up points pretty damn well, and contrary to popular belief he doesn't screw up enough defensively to negate all the good he brings

 

[LeafsNation75]

Supply and demand usually dictates price. Giving a player a limited No-trade clause, as Kessel, Bozak, and JVR decreased their value. If you wanted to deal Bozak and JVR, it had to be done much sooner. Teams that weren't going to make the playoffs weren't about to spend money on Bozak and JVR just to make their draft position worst. How can fans bash players then think other teams want them? Believe it or not, other NHL clubs might know what's up with their value as well. I think potential returns were very optimistic.

Dion Phaneuf had a limited no trade clause and you can argue that his contract was a lot worse than both JVR and Bozak's combined. Fans of other teams said he could not be traded and if he was Toronto would need to retain 50% of it. In the end Toronto traded Phaneuf and 100% of his contract to Ottawa.

 

[moon111]

Dion Phaneuf had a limited no trade clause and you can argue that his contract was a lot worse than both JVR and Bozak's combined. Fans of other teams said he could not be traded and if he was Toronto would need to retain 50% of it. In the end Toronto traded Phaneuf and 100% of his contract to Ottawa.

But just having term on his contract would involve being able to trade him to 50% more teams then JVR and Bozak who could of only been traded to a team that at least thought they could contend.
Take away teams that didn't need them, that couldn't afford them, that didn't have anything they wanted to give up for them, etc. Then on the flip side, see what happens when you lose to Boston in the first round, without two players who both scored twice as much as Matthews in the playoffs. The entire excuse for failure would rest on why the Leafs traded for two 2nd round draft picks. Not one person has ever said, "That team sure needed JVR or Bozak to win the Cup!" I have never seen a huge list of teams presented as possible destinations for their service. The best I ever heard was Montreal, and they'd just wait until they came available as UFA.

 

[Ciao]

I do this every time: I come here looking for a news article and find nothing but a blog by a blogger who doesn't proofread his work and doesn't know the difference between news, commentary and opinion.

With just a little bit of copy editing this would be a good commentary on the Leafs off-season options. However, it is anything but a news article.

 

[WTFMAN99]

I do this every time: I come here looking for a news article and find nothing but a blog by a blogger who doesn't proofread his work and doesn't know the difference between news, commentary and opinion.

With just a little bit of copy editing this would be a good commentary on the Leafs off-season options. However, it is anything but a news article.

 

[luvdahattymatty]

Gards should be traded asap. A big strong and fast dman who plays a little nasty on right side plus a decent pick or prospect. Trading an offensive dman for a defensive dman on right side. Dermott is already better than Gards as a 2 way dman. Holl can replace Polak for this season and our defence will get an upgrade.

 

[613Leafer]

Re-sign him or trade him, do NOT lose him for nothing.

We've traded 2nd rounders two trade deadlines in a row for 4th line players, and if we let Gardiner walk for nothing next offseason that'll be two seasons in a row losing very valuable pieces for nothing (JVR, Bozak, Gardiner, etc).

It doesn't take all that long to bleed the organizational depth if you keep trading high picks and letting guys walk for nothing.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Fair.....do teams exceed 100+ Points often?

I’m just saying if you feel you’re close, hard to say the Leafs weren’t a contender last this year, you go for it. The Leafs gambled and kept JVR & Bozak as their playoff rentals this and lost. But give the Leafs credit, it was a ballsy move......but at times you don’t get a chance at the brass ring this year they had a decent chance. Too early to say about next year......decide that through the season once you see how the team is doing and how Dermott is doing.....why make a big risky move now for no reason.

See my point?

100+ points is an arbitrary line. You say they had a decent chance, I say they had a slim chance, very slim.

You give them credit for being ballsy, I give them a smack for being unrealistic and impatient.

Sure, I think I see your point and I strongly disagree.

 

[MR4]

We did that this season

We can't keep bleeding assets and not expect it to harm us when our best players are hitting there primes and we need to put talent around them

To be fair, keeping JVR & Bozak with our wing depth was by far a stupider idea than keeping Gardiner with our D

 

[indigobuffalo]

It’s not dumb of the Leafs aren’t planning on resigning him.

Gardeners trade value is likely at an all time high (though I’d be willing to resign him for the right price).

Not resigning him would also be dumb.

 

[Hunter368]

100+ points is an arbitrary line. You say they had a decent chance, I say they had a slim chance, very slim.

You give them credit for being ballsy, I give them a smack for being unrealistic and impatient.

Sure, I think I see your point and I strongly disagree.

Fair to disagree, but any team finishing 7th OA with no major injuries at season end and one of the best offences is a serious contender. Had Andersen went on a hot streak at the right moment, see MAF, where could the Leafs ended up.

 

[rent free]

He's gonna leave the team for nothing like jvr and bozak

 

[Walshy7]

Rielly didn't have a 50 point season when he signed his contract for $5M there is 0% chance Gardiner signs for less than Rielly. Rielly at $5M for 3 more years is a steal of a contract really. Gardiner starts at $6M by 6,7,8 years im not sure we should be doing that. Id lean towards trading him even for futures which we can then use to target a top 4 dman to replace him. a 1st, b prospect and 2019 2nd for example would have to get us a top 4 dman especially a left handed one who seem to be a little bit cheaper on the market

 

[SprDaVE]

He's a very good player that is seriously underrated and the hate for him is irrational. Some people really hate skilled players and always expect the skilled players to make no mistakes... it's bizarre.

He's a really good player that we cannot let walk for nothing. Like I said before, if there's one thing I hope Dubas didn't learn from Lamoriello is how to manage his assets. Letting Gardiner walk for nothing would be a terrible mistake but I'm confident that Dubas values Gardiner and skillset highly.

 

[ToneDog]

He's a very good player that is seriously underrated and the hate for him is irrational. Some people really hate skilled players and always expect the skilled players to make no mistakes... it's bizarre.

He's a really good player that we cannot let walk for nothing. Like I said before, if there's one thing I hope Dubas didn't learn from Lamoriello is how to manage his assets. Letting Gardiner walk for nothing would be a terrible mistake.

They were comparing Gards to Orlov and the mistakes they make. We don't see other dmen as often as we see Gards and as such we don't realize that Gards is much better than we think he is. It is one of the reasons Babs loves and plays the guy so much. If we change the mix up front and add some forwards that are more committed to D, our D will look much better that it looked against the Bruins. God knows it can't look any worse.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Fair to disagree, but any team finishing 7th OA with no major injuries at season end and one of the best offences is a serious contender. Had Andersen went on a hot streak at the right moment, see MAF, where could the Leafs ended up.

I get where you're coming from and still disagree (and like you say, that's fair).

7th OA is just another arbitrary line IMO.

Had Andersen ... that's a really big if and you could say similar things for most playoff teams. And honestly, if Andersen pulls a MAF, we go pretty far (at a bare minimum beat Boston) with or without JVR IMO.

In another post you mention that we're deep and have a top 10 prospect pool etc., you sound like you're saying that we're so deep we don't need more prospects. I strongly disagree here, keep in mind that all prospects don't have to play for us one day to have value, they can also be used to make trades. We're probably losing 3 pending UFA's this season, losing Gardiner a year from now would be a massive blow. We still have a ways to go to get where we want to be on defence and losing Gardiner for nothing puts us even further away from reaching that goal.