People are so down on Mete this is depressing.
The kid's only faults to date are not being 6'3, and has yet to score a goal.
Other than that, he's been surprisingly good in his defensive reads and in handling top 4 minutes...as a 19 and 20 years old.
In the grand scheme of things, Kulak and Chariot will battle it out for the bottom 2 spots on the left side until a kid like Romanov pushes them out further down the road. None of the two are #2-3 D, they are just fine #4-5 and so long as they can do better than Benn, our defense will improve.
Remember, Mete is going into is third season as a top pairing D at age 21! So long as he keeps improving, the Habs will be just fine.
By the way, here's a list of 20 years old and below defensemen who played in the league last year:
Dahlin
Heiskanen
Sergachev
McAvoy
Girard
Hronek
Chychrun
Cholowski
Lajoie
Jokiharju
Mahura
Valimaki
Btw, guess who had the best +/- of all! (Disclaimer, it's Mete at +17, most of those kids are well into the negatives.)
There's no need to get out there and strap 7M of cap space in a troubling player like Gardiner.