Gardiner shows just how toxic Leafs nation can be. This is a guy who has given his all for the team. He was brought in by past terrible management and survived, and has grown his game exceptionally well especially here last few years. Historically, outside of ONE bad game, he has been a beast in the playoffs. His underlying numbers put him in the best of the league for D in a lot of areas. He just came off a 50 point season.
And then you see fans who would give him away for free because he had a bad game. Guys who trash him for a mistake after he has already had a 3 point night and been a key piece in maintaining pressure against the other team by moving the puck well to our forwards.
It makes me know for a fact that if we ever got a guy like Subban who plays the same way, he would be run otu of town eventually too. In Nashville they just love him, hell even in Montreal. Here he wouldn't be good enough at defense, would have this or that issue.
And then because of how overly critical we are of these guys, main board idiots grasp onto "player x is bad" and just trash the hell out of them leading to more discussion and media picking it up. How anyone can look at the BODY of work of Jake Gardiner and say he is a bad player is laughable.