OldTimeHockey
Active member
Strangelove said:Highlander said:The upside on Gardiner is too high, the sky is the limit really..in time he will learn to be better defensively but right now his offensive ability is unquestionable..
His defensive issues are hugely overblown as far as I'm concerned. His main problem, if you can call it that, is that the Leafs' forwards often don't have the minor hockey-level knowledge of when to back up their pinching D. But in terms of his play in the defensive end - his ability to move the puck, break out, get be in the right place positionally - he's one of the best, if not the best on the team. He's the only Leafs defenseman able to consistently move the puck up ice instead of getting hemmed in for extended periods of time.
My only issue with him defensively is he sometimes gets caught in no man's land and there was no real reason to wander there. That should improve over time though.
And for those that criticize his pinching....Pinching is only viewed poorly when it fails....100% of the time when it fails it looks like a mistake..because it was...But the other 100% of the time when it works, it looks like a stroke of genius.
It's all about timing and Gardiner seems to be improving on the timing of his pinches game in and game out.