Brophy on Leafs: Gardiner gets second wind
Posted February 7, 2012 8:23 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
On a night when you could make the case it wasn’t one you’d want to own up to being a defenceman, young Jake Gardiner might just beg to differ.
The 21-year-old rookie defender notched his second goal of the season and was plus-3 as he passed Adam Larsson of the New Jersey Devils to take over the rookie defenceman scoring lead in the NHL in a pond-hockeyish 6-3 win over the Edmonton Oilers. Aside from Gardiner’s successful evening, it was a sloppy effort by both teams in their own ends, but entertaining nonetheless.
It was only a few weeks ago that Gardiner was banished to the press box and then sent to the minors for a game, but since his return, he has gotten back to demonstrating the promise he displayed during the pre-season. In his last eight games he has two goals and seven points. Overall, the 6-foot-1, 175-pound speedster has two goals and 17 points in 46 games and is an impressive plus-10.
Not bad for a guy the Anaheim Ducks gave up on after choosing him 17th overall in 2008. Throughout most of the first half Gardiner offered glimpses of great things to come, but there was always the nagging feeling that he was either holding back just a little, perhaps out of shyness, or maybe it was the rigors of a tough NHL schedule compared to the more paced routine of playing in the NCAA were taking a toll. He played the previous three years at the University of Wisconsin.
Leafs coach Ron Wilson has his theory.
“I think it’s simple,” Wilson said. “He just ran out of gas and hit a wall. Whereas you’re thinking might be, ‘Send him to the minors,’ what would be the point of doing that? He’d have to keep on playing when he has no gas in the tank. So we didn’t play him for two-and-a-half weeks and got him ready to go again by putting him in one minor league game. Now he seems to be energized again. His whole game seems to be skating. If he’s not skating, he gets in trouble and now you’re seeing him start to move his feet again. He’s a pretty effective player and hard to play against when he’s skating.”
Gardiner didn’t complain about being a healthy scratch in four straight games and five of 11, but that didn’t mean he liked it. At the same time, he understood his team has a lot of depth on the blue line and if you aren’t bringing it consistently, you won’t play. Also, he admits he was indeed getting a little tired.
“When you don’t play it’s always frustrating, but it was nice to get a little rest and then get a game with the Marlies to get a little confidence back,” he said. “Then to get back up here with our team playing well has been fun.”
Wilson encourages his defencemen to get involved in the offence and Gardiner looks like a player who will one day put up big numbers. Wilson has noticed a little maturity creeping into Gardiner’s game.
“He’s getting in and making plays and that’s part of seeing the game,” Wilson said. “The game is probably slowing down a bit for him. When you first play in the NHL it’s so doggone fast and I think the play has slowed down. Also, we’ve been on him to shoot the puck more. He has been very unselfish; he wants to pass the puck to people and the last couple of weeks he has started to put the puck to the net and things are happening.”
Gardiner agreed.
“I think as the year goes on I’ve been getting more comfortable,” Gardiner said. “I’m focusing on defence first knowing I’m going to get my chances and things are going my way now so it has been good. In the first half I would look for the pass most of the time and I know I have to shoot more,” Gardiner said. “I was a passer in college and they want me to start shooting the puck more.”
For Leafs goalie James Reimer, who also happens to be finding his game after a frustrating first half during which he missed six weeks with a concussion and then lost his starter’s job to Jonas Gustavsson, he thinks Gardiner’s sudden spurt is a case of a young player becoming aware of his potential and taking advantage of an opportunity.
“I think he’s just finding himself,” Reimer said. “He had been playing well and yes, he may have hit the wall, but part of it was he still hadn’t got that first goal and once he got it, it was just a matter of him keeping on working hard. He sat out a few games and watched from up top and the good thing is we have a lot of good D-men that he can learn from; guys like Mike Komisarek, Dion Phaneuf and John-Michael Liles. If he can sit up there and do his homework watching those guys and see what makes them successful, he can add some of those characteristics into his game and maybe that’s what he did because he’s playing pretty well now.”
The win for Toronto was its third in a row and fifth in six games. It bumped the Leafs up to seventh place in the Eastern Conference and a win in Winnipeg Tuesday would put a 10-point margin between Toronto and the Jets who are in 10th place with 54 points.
