If you simply watch the game you can see the impact Gardiner has had offensively.. Fleury has also played a great two-way game. You don’t need analytics to see this. I’m not using points alone, Gardiner has made amazing defensive plays while making bad ones, they have definitely been the best dman these last games.
Ok, I'm not sure where you are going with this so let me try to figure it out.
Gardiner struggled early on in the season (similar to how Dougie struggled last year) and his TOI was down because of it. His advanced "stats" were pretty good, but if you "watch the game" you could see that he was not playing well. I think we all agree on that. Now he's playing better and he's averaging almost 20 min / game in his last 8 games.
Fleury has been better (but not "great two-way"). He still struggles badly at zone exits and his play with the puck is probably the weakest among Canes defensemen, along with Edmundson. If you "watch the games", you must clearly see that, right? Because it's pretty obvious. He'll have moments of "wow, he looks good" and moments of "man, he looks like a 3rd pairing depth defensemen. Even so, if you accept he's playing better, he's getting more minutes now as well (averaging over 15 / game during that same stretch).
So the statement is Gardiner and Fleury are playing better hockey right now. If we accept that, then it makes sense that Rod is rewarding them with more minutes also, which he is so I'm not sure what problem you are seeing.
Secondly, this all stemmed from your statement "Rod hates playing young guys".
1) What does Gardiner have to do with that and why bring him up?
2) Facts show that Rod IS playing guys younger than Fleury, the same age as Fleury and 1 year older than Fleury.
So what is it you are trying to argue here, because you are going in circles and making no sense.