Jake Gardiner signs with Carolina [4 years, $4.05mil AAV]

[CarltonTheBear]

Not to completely derail this Gardiner thread, but I'm becoming more and more sure that Dubas wanted Ceci to be a part of the Zaitsev trade. If he didn't... then I really can't wrap my head around why the sens included him in the deal. I don't really think anyone's explored that decision from their end.

The assumption has always seemed to be they dumped him on us. That Ceci was the price to pay to get rid of Zaitsev. But did Ottawa view him as a negative asset like we did our guy? I don't think that they did. He played tons of minutes for them and I think it's fair to say that they're not exactly the most analytically inclined team in the league. I mean if they think that Zaitsev AND Hainsey can provide value to their team then surely they at least think Ceci is a capable NHL defencemen. So why would they "dump" a player like that if they didn't have to? Even if they didn't see Ceci as being a long-term part of their team why not just make the Zaitsev trade sans Ceci, sign him to a 1-year deal like we did, and then ship him somewhere for anything at the deadline?

 

[Frank E]

Reporter from Montreal saying that Gardiner turned down $5.25mil x 3 years from the Habs.

As my friend said when i told him about that news.... Frig the habs

I think it'd be better if Bergevin stopped telling everyone how much he's trying because it's just showing them how many players don't want to be there.

The article doesn't report that it was Bergevin that provided the alleged numbers.

EDIT: The author says he had an NHL source for that info.

 

[Coco-puffs]

Reporter from Montreal saying that Gardiner turned down $5.25mil x 3 years from the Habs.

As my friend said when i told him about that news.... Frig the habs

I think it'd be better if Bergevin stopped telling everyone how much he's trying because it's just showing them how many players don't want to be there.

The article doesn't report that it was Bergevin that provided the alleged numbers.

No, but he did say yesterday that they did offer him a contract. 

 

[Kin]

Not to completely derail this Gardiner thread, but I'm becoming more and more sure that Dubas wanted Ceci to be a part of the Zaitsev trade. If he didn't... then I really can't wrap my head around why the sens included him in the deal. I don't really think anyone's explored that decision from their end.

The assumption has always seemed to be they dumped him on us. That Ceci was the price to pay to get rid of Zaitsev. But did Ottawa view him as a negative asset like we did our guy? I don't think that they did. He played tons of minutes for them and I think it's fair to say that they're not exactly the most analytically inclined team in the league. I mean if they think that Zaitsev AND Hainsey can provide value to their team then surely they at least think Ceci is a capable NHL defencemen. So why would they "dump" a player like that if they didn't have to? Even if they didn't see Ceci as being a long-term part of their team why not just make the Zaitsev trade sans Ceci, sign him to a 1-year deal like we did, and then ship him somewhere for anything at the deadline?

Yeah that never made sense. If they thought Ceci was worthless and they couldn't give him away for free, they wouldn't have qualified him at 4.3 million.

The only thing that even remotely rings true is that when looking at Zaitsev/Ceci or Zaitsev/Hainsey they went with the latter because it figured to be cheaper.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Yeah that never made sense. If they thought Ceci was worthless and they couldn't give him away for free, they wouldn't have qualified him at 4.3 million.

The only thing that even remotely rings true is that when looking at Zaitsev/Ceci or Zaitsev/Hainsey they went with the latter because it figured to be cheaper.

Yeah the extra financial cost of Ceci is certainly something that could have played into this from Ottawa's perspective. But even then, I think it's safe to assume that these trade negotiations had been going on for awhile prior to the deal being officially completed. IIRC, Dorion even said that they talked to Toronto about acquiring Zaitsev earlier in the year. Qualifying offers were sent out on June 25th this year. I wouldn't be surprised if the framework of the trade was already basically in place by then, especially since we know the only reason the trade officially landed on July 1st was because of the signing bonuses that the Leafs needed to pay.

So if Ottawa didn't want Ceci for whatever reason (be it financial or performance or a combination of the two) but knew that they were on the verge of acquiring Zaitsev (and even potentially Hainsey because of the interview process) then they had plenty of time and opportunity to just not qualify him. Then they could have gone to Toronto and say "hey, since we're not forcing you to take Ceci you should throw in an extra draft pick too or something".

And ditto for Toronto. If the only reason they were taking Ceci back was because Ottawa was trying to unload him Dubas would have just said "uh, you know nobody is forcing you to qualify him, right?".

 

[Kin]

So if Ottawa didn't want Ceci for whatever reason (be it financial or performance or a combination of the two) but knew that they were on the verge of acquiring Zaitsev (and even potentially Hainsey because of the interview process) then they had plenty of time and opportunity to just not qualify him. Then they could have gone to Toronto and say "hey, since we're not forcing you to take Ceci you should throw in an extra draft pick too or something".

Hell, Ottawa gave the Leafs a draft pick in this deal. Those aren't the actions of a team who is taking on such a bad contract that they can demand the Leafs take on a contract that's 3-4 times more than what a player would get on the market.

The Hainsey signing is at least a little bit interesting here in as much as it shows that once Ottawa traded Ceci, they still felt like they needed to go out and get someone to effectively replace him above and beyond Zaitsev(not to mention Hainsey getting 3.5 million on day 1 of free agency makes it pretty hard to believe Ceci would have had to go begging for 1 million or 1.5 as a UFA).

I think there are people, and I'm not naming any names here but the fine folks at PPP are among them, who are twisting themselves into knots to avoid the obvious. The Leafs felt they needed a RHD who could play the PK. They had the opportunity to get Ceci and felt he would be better in the role than any of the options they thought they had on the UFA market that they could afford. By any measure, that does mean choosing him over Gardiner. Some people are finding that hard to reconcile with what they think of the guy making the hockey decisions for the Leafs and how he makes his calls but clearly he sees a value in Ceci that, at least for now, it's reasonable to assume the league sees as well.

 

[herman]

https://twitter.com/emilymkaplan/status/1175582901309771776

I?m laugh-crying right now