Jake Gardiner signs with Carolina [4 years, $4.05mil AAV]
- Thread starter CarltonTheBear
- Start date
Guilt Trip
Active member
Good deal, bad deal, doesn't matter. He doesnt have a place on this team anymore. Wish him well. I trust the Leafs know what they're doing.
OldTimeHockey
Active member
Stebro said:
But, without taking on Ceci, the Leafs still have Zaitsev eating the same 4 million dollars....for longer.
moon111
New member
Gardiner has 30 giveaways in 19 playoff games.
Ceci faced the best opposition in his own end and wound up with the same
scoring rate as Dermott who's been pampered in his usage. I highly suspect
he will be the cautious partner that works with Reilly.
Barrie will be like a right-side Gardiner with Muzzin on his side.
I've also seen plenty of 'superstar' players come into the league, very offensively talent that needed to learn to play
among the best. It took adjustment and learning as they had spent all of their time up to that point dominating on
their offensive skills alone. Don't believe Leaf's window had opened yet. They're still getting their feet wet.
Ceci will be peaking when this team peaks.
Ceci faced the best opposition in his own end and wound up with the same
scoring rate as Dermott who's been pampered in his usage. I highly suspect
he will be the cautious partner that works with Reilly.
Barrie will be like a right-side Gardiner with Muzzin on his side.
I've also seen plenty of 'superstar' players come into the league, very offensively talent that needed to learn to play
among the best. It took adjustment and learning as they had spent all of their time up to that point dominating on
their offensive skills alone. Don't believe Leaf's window had opened yet. They're still getting their feet wet.
Ceci will be peaking when this team peaks.
herman
Well-known member
Nik the Trik said:
This isn?t really an L/R thing, if that?s what you mean.
In cap restricted roster building, where you can?t just buy flawless players? Even without the cap, there?s still a TOI limitation that means the bottom chunk of the roster is populated by players with maybe a standout skill that?s leveraged through usage.
Dubas got Muzzin to replace Gardiner.
Nik the Trik said:
I don't think he was ever going to go to arbitration.
He had a 4.3M QO that expired on July 15th, if the Leafs didn't sign him by then, I would assume he would just accepted the QO because he would have known that there was a good chance that the Leafs would walk away from an arbitration award and he wouldn't be able to get 4M+ on the UFA market.
I can't explain the 200k extra, but I don't think there was any way to just walk away from Ceci all together.
herman
Well-known member
Would the Leafs D be better with a Gardiner instead of Ceci: yeah very much so.
Would the Leafs be able to sign Marner with Gardiner signed (assuming Ceci is traded further for a similar option) without losing another depth forward like Johnsson/Kapanen: maaaaybe? Certainly not at Gardiner?s initial ask.
On the aggregate, I think the Leafs came out of a salary cap hellscape about as good as it could?ve, with no offersheet risk.
Yes, we lost my favourite defenseman, who is turning 30 off a pretty serious injury. Yes, we picked up a defenseman who I?d laugh at every other team for signing (still sort of laughing that they kiboshed a Taylor Hall trade for him tbh). Getting Barrie slotted over Ceci, at the same time as saving money with Kadri-lite kind of makes this pretty fine to me.
Would the Leafs be able to sign Marner with Gardiner signed (assuming Ceci is traded further for a similar option) without losing another depth forward like Johnsson/Kapanen: maaaaybe? Certainly not at Gardiner?s initial ask.
On the aggregate, I think the Leafs came out of a salary cap hellscape about as good as it could?ve, with no offersheet risk.
Yes, we lost my favourite defenseman, who is turning 30 off a pretty serious injury. Yes, we picked up a defenseman who I?d laugh at every other team for signing (still sort of laughing that they kiboshed a Taylor Hall trade for him tbh). Getting Barrie slotted over Ceci, at the same time as saving money with Kadri-lite kind of makes this pretty fine to me.
Kin
New member
Deebo said:
I think that's where I disagree. Not so much that teams would be lining up to pay Ceci that much but that free agency wouldn't have held appeal to him even if it was after arbitration.
I tend to think that if a player isn't wanted, if it's made known he isn't wanted, and isn't likely to see a lot of playing time that they'd probably be alright with going elsewhere.
Kin
New member
herman said:
Well, going on the assumption that we're not talking about the top 4 then yes, I agree. If you're carving out room for players on your bottom pairing than ideally, you're going to find one with a standout skill. In the absence of that, you want the best player available. Gardiner would have satisfied the latter. I don't think Ceci does the former.
Frank E
Active member
Deebo said:
I think the Leafs' threat of walking away from any arbitration would be enough to hold him to his already overpriced QO.
I'm not sure Dubas is getting enough criticism for this extra $200K, given how tight they are up against the cap this season. $4.3m was already too much, and nobody would have blamed the Leafs if they just cut-bait and let him go to UFA, if indeed Ceci wanted to roll the dice and elect for arbitration.
Kin
New member
Frank E said:
I think the problem with this line of thought is that it assumes the Leafs don't really want Ceci and just have him because Ottawa forced him on them. Because in that case, sure, you're fine with starting things off with threats and a willingness to walk away.
If, however, you genuinely think he's going to be your #4 defenseman because you think he fits an appropriate niche and holds his stick in the right hand then 200k is a small price to pay for making him happy that he's not stuck with his QO and comes into camp eager to make an impression.
Frank E
Active member
Nik the Trik said:
I look at it a little differently...he's just been acquired by a much better team with more resources to help him become a better hockey player and earn himself a longer term deal, but that's up against the cap with a pretty important RFA to sign with hardly a smidgen of room for error.
So he can have his $4.3m, or he can elect for arbitration where there's never any guarantee on what the Leafs will want to do.