Jake Gardiner

[Zee]

I think the player I most compare Gardiner too is Leetch.  I remember watching a Rangers game, where they were down a goal, and they are on a powerplay.  Adam Graves is on the half boards and he winds up to take a shot, and then lowers his stick cause he can't see anything he likes.  He raises his stick again like he is going to blast it, and he's holding it there, taking his time.  Leetch skates in off the point and takes the puck out from under him, skates in, dekes the goalie and scores.  Graves is just kinda sheepishly grinning at him after the play.  The announcers are talking about how "Leetch will take the puck from anyone to make a play".  It was interesting. I can see Gardiner doing that.

Comparing Gardiner to a hall of fame defense man is a bit early yet.

 

[rdowdall]

I think the player I most compare Gardiner too is Leetch.  I remember watching a Rangers game, where they were down a goal, and they are on a powerplay.  Adam Graves is on the half boards and he winds up to take a shot, and then lowers his stick cause he can't see anything he likes.  He raises his stick again like he is going to blast it, and he's holding it there, taking his time.  Leetch skates in off the point and takes the puck out from under him, skates in, dekes the goalie and scores.  Graves is just kinda sheepishly grinning at him after the play.  The announcers are talking about how "Leetch will take the puck from anyone to make a play".  It was interesting. I can see Gardiner doing that.

Comparing Gardiner to a hall of fame defense man is a bit early yet.

True.  I guess Gardiner just reminds me of him.  But yeah, Leetch was in that upper echelon class, and if Gardiner becomes a good defencemen, then we should all just be happy.

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

I think the player I most compare Gardiner too is Leetch.  I remember watching a Rangers game, where they were down a goal, and they are on a powerplay.  Adam Graves is on the half boards and he winds up to take a shot, and then lowers his stick cause he can't see anything he likes.  He raises his stick again like he is going to blast it, and he's holding it there, taking his time.  Leetch skates in off the point and takes the puck out from under him, skates in, dekes the goalie and scores.  Graves is just kinda sheepishly grinning at him after the play.  The announcers are talking about how "Leetch will take the puck from anyone to make a play".  It was interesting. I can see Gardiner doing that.

Comparing Gardiner to a hall of fame defense man is a bit early yet.

True.  I guess Gardiner just reminds me of him.  But yeah, Leetch was in that upper echelon class, and if Gardiner becomes a good defencemen, then we should all just be happy.

I don't think you need to defend yourself.  I think it's fair to compare players based on their style of play without there being an implication that one guy's ceiling is going to be close to the other's.  Gardiner has a style of play that reasonably warrants a comparison to the style of play of a Leetch, a Coffey, or a Niedermayer.  He probably won't achieve their kinds of career achievements, but he plays like them in various ways.

 

[Tigger]

In terms of how he looks when he skates and distributes the puck I can see a Leetch comparison, heads up all the time. I haven't seen the high end wheels of a Coffey in a meaningful or consistent way really, so far at least.

 

[Kin]

Gardiner has a style of play that reasonably warrants a comparison to the style of play of a Leetch, a Coffey, or a Niedermayer.

I don't know if it really does.  Gardiner's got good instincts, skates well and isn't terribly physical but to make the leap from that to those guys I don't think really describes his play. Leetch, for instance, was a one man PP pretty much from the moment he was in the league. That's not just an issue of quality, that's part of his "style". Gardiner's play right now doesn't say Leetch so much as Bryan Berard or Darryl Sydor or Bret Hedican. Those aren't sexy examples but they're way more on the nose.

 

[Tigger]

In terms of skating ability I might agree with Hedican ( not his speed though, yet anyways ) but not with Berard or Sydor, I don't recall either of them ever really looking like that consistently.

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

Gardiner has a style of play that reasonably warrants a comparison to the style of play of a Leetch, a Coffey, or a Niedermayer.

I don't know if it really does.  Gardiner's got good instincts, skates well and isn't terribly physical but to make the leap from that to those guys I don't think really describes his play. Leetch, for instance, was a one man PP pretty much from the moment he was in the league. That's not just an issue of quality, that's part of his "style". Gardiner's play right now doesn't say Leetch so much as Bryan Berard or Darryl Sydor or Bret Hedican. Those aren't sexy examples but they're way more on the nose.

The crucial and operative word, used multiple times in my post and the ones I quoted, was "comparison" and "compare".  As a smooth skating, slick passing, confident puck-carrying defenseman, Gardiner demonstrates some qualities that some great offensive defensemen have also demonstrated.  If you don't think there's an equivalence to Leetch, that's fine and dandy, but quite irrelevant, at least to me and my point.  My point was that it shouldn't be some kind of hockey sacrilege to compare one young player to another retired player just because that other player was a Hall of Famer.

 

[Kin]

My point was that it shouldn't be some kind of hockey sacrilege to compare one young player to another retired player just because that other player was a Hall of Famer.

I don't think it should be sacrilege to compare any hockey player to any other hockey player provided you make the right conclusions. I wouldn't care if someone wanted to compare Colton Orr and Wayne Gretzky so long as they came to the right conclusion that the two, outside of being NHL hockey players, had nothing in common.

My point, and I was continuing the thread from where you'd quoted, was about the idea that the player who Gardiner immediately brings to mind is Leetch. Leetch was, as you mention, a smooth skater and a great passer. Those are attributes Gardiner's shown flashes of. But Leetch was also one of the greatest goal scoring defensemen of all time. Gardiner's shown nothing of that and that was a crucial element in the style that Leetch played. There are better comparisons of guys who fit those attributes that Gardiner and Leetch have in common but also don't have the attributes that separated Leetch from the pack. Does Gardiner have some things in common? Sure. But he's got those things in common with hundreds of guys.

 

[cw]

I'm with HS on this.

Gardiner's proved he's a good rookie dman.

I think a fan can compare any aspect of his game to any other dman he might remind a fan of without having to stipulate that in doing so he's not implying he's as good or has all the other qualities those other dmen had/have. That's almost a strawman to me - extracting or assuming something has been said when it hasn't.

I haven't been able to pin down who Gardiner is most like yet. It might take the characteristics of five different dmen to describe his game - some who might be better and/or some not as good.

 

[Kin]

I'm with HS on this.

Gardiner's proved he's a good rookie dman.

I think a fan can compare any aspect of his game to any other dman he might remind a fan of without having to stipulate that in doing so he's not implying he's as good or has all the other qualities those other dmen had/have. That's almost a strawman to me - extracting or assuming something has been said when it hasn't.

I don't really think HS and I are on opposite sides here, I'm just more replying to the first line in the post in question of "I think the player I most compare Gardiner too is Leetch"(emphasis mine). If the post is "in some ways, player x is similar to player y" I'm in full agreement.

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

My point was that it shouldn't be some kind of hockey sacrilege to compare one young player to another retired player just because that other player was a Hall of Famer.

I don't think it should be sacrilege to compare any hockey player to any other hockey player provided you make the right conclusions. I wouldn't care if someone wanted to compare Colton Orr and Wayne Gretzky so long as they came to the right conclusion that the two, outside of being NHL hockey players, had nothing in common.

My point, and I was continuing the thread from where you'd quoted, was about the idea that the player who Gardiner immediately brings to mind is Leetch. Leetch was, as you mention, a smooth skater and a great passer. Those are attributes Gardiner's shown flashes of. But Leetch was also one of the greatest goal scoring defensemen of all time. Gardiner's shown nothing of that and that was a crucial element in the style that Leetch played. There are better comparisons of guys who fit those attributes that Gardiner and Leetch have in common but also don't have the attributes that separated Leetch from the pack. Does Gardiner have some things in common? Sure. But he's got those things in common with hundreds of guys.

I guess we're looking at different things here.  You're looking at one poster saying the player he compares Gardiner the most to being Leetch, and I was merely addressing the response, which was pretty much saying you can't compare him to Leetch for some indefinite period of time because Leetch is a Hall of Famer and Gardiner is young.

It's fair game on your part to say Gardiner's skill-set doesn't closely compare to Leetch's, and it's a reasonable argument.  It remains generally irrelevant to my point.  You can scratch Leetch from my arbitrary list of elite offensive defensemen to compare to if you like, not that it matters, and throw in the term "poor man's player x" if it makes any of it more palatable.

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

I'm with HS on this.

Gardiner's proved he's a good rookie dman.

I think a fan can compare any aspect of his game to any other dman he might remind a fan of without having to stipulate that in doing so he's not implying he's as good or has all the other qualities those other dmen had/have. That's almost a strawman to me - extracting or assuming something has been said when it hasn't.

I haven't been able to pin down who Gardiner is most like yet. It might take the characteristics of five different dmen to describe his game - some who might be better and/or some not as good.

And, really, in a Watters-esque "at the end of the day" not even the Sedin twins are equivalent players.  We really found no exact equivalent talent to Kessel, either historically or presently.  Every guy has their strengths and their weaknesses, their tendencies and their on-ice quirks.  Hopefully, Gardiner's significant strengths grow to far outweigh his weaknesses as an NHLer.

 

[Kin]

It's fair game on your part to say Gardiner's skill-set doesn't closely compare to Leetch's, and it's a reasonable argument.  It remains generally irrelevant to my point.  You can scratch Leetch from my arbitrary list of elite offensive defensemen to compare to if you like, not that it matters, and throw in the term "poor man's player x" if it makes any of it more palatable.

I think obviously the issue here is that "compare" was sort of misused in the posts we're referring to. Like I said, I understand and agree with your point that any two hockey players can be compared to each other. I am, like I said, making a separate point about the validity and conclusions of the original comparison being made.

To my mind the "poor man's X" phrase always sort of applied to a guy who did all of the things someone else did but to a lesser extent. In this case I'm saying there are several key differences that make simply highlighting the similarities misleading.

 

[Zee]

Leetch was an impact player right from the start of his career.  He played 17 games in his first stint with the Rangers at 20-21 years old, putting up 14 points.  He then proceeded to throw up 71 points in his first full NHL season.    Now I know the game has changed significantly from those days, and you don't see defensemen putting up large point totals like Leetch once did regularly and I'd be ecstatic if Gardiner could realistically be compared to Leetch in say 5 years.  Until he starts racking up some more points, he's just a smooth skating, reliable defenseman for now.

Apparently I have no other point to offer other than "yeah, Leetch was REALLY good". LOL

 

[cw]

I'm with HS on this.

Gardiner's proved he's a good rookie dman.

I think a fan can compare any aspect of his game to any other dman he might remind a fan of without having to stipulate that in doing so he's not implying he's as good or has all the other qualities those other dmen had/have. That's almost a strawman to me - extracting or assuming something has been said when it hasn't.

I haven't been able to pin down who Gardiner is most like yet. It might take the characteristics of five different dmen to describe his game - some who might be better and/or some not as good.

And, really, in a Watters-esque "at the end of the day" not even the Sedin twins are equivalent players.  We really found no exact equivalent talent to Kessel, either historically or presently.  Every guy has their strengths and their weaknesses, their tendencies and their on-ice quirks.  Hopefully, Gardiner's significant strengths grow to far outweigh his weaknesses as an NHLer.

A week or two ago, I looked up some video of Bobby Orr because for some reason, Gardiner's skating reminded me a little of Bobby. Upon further review, Bobby was too bow legged and after the refresher, I dismissed the comparison as their skating is too different - but there were enough bits there that it triggered me to look into it.

His skating is a touch like Orr. He can do the 360 (which he did recently). He skates himself out of trouble something like Orr did. His stance seems a little wide like Bobby's was (probably more due to Bobby's bowed legs).

But clearly, he's no Bobby Orr and never will be - as nobody ever will be.

Thank God I didn't try to post about that sensation - the audacity to compare him to the greatest of all time!!  ;D

I'm the same with Kessel. I haven't even settled on who Kessel shoots like because of that seemingly unusual dip in his sometimes flutter-like trajectory.

So far, all I've concluded is Gardiner looks a lot like Jake Gardiner. 

 

[Tigger]

It doesn't say anything about Jake's style but when we start to hedge on trading him straight up for Ryan there's a certain quality or value to add there too.

 

[Bullfrog]

So far, all I've concluded is Gardiner looks a lot like Jake Gardiner. 

In what sense though? Does Jake Gardiner skate like Jake Gardiner? Can Jake Gardiner pass as well as Jake Gardiner? or are we talking potential quality of play?

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

So far, all I've concluded is Gardiner looks a lot like Jake Gardiner. 

In what sense though? Does Jake Gardiner skate like Jake Gardiner? Can Jake Gardiner pass as well as Jake Gardiner? or are we talking potential quality of play?

Jake Gardiner is good, but he's no Jake Gardiner.

 

[maplesyrup]

I've felt the same way about Kulemin this year.

 

[Tigger]

So far, all I've concluded is Gardiner looks a lot like Jake Gardiner. 

In what sense though? Does Jake Gardiner skate like Jake Gardiner? Can Jake Gardiner pass as well as Jake Gardiner? or are we talking potential quality of play?

Jake Gardiner is good, but he's no Jake Gardiner.

Oh c'mon Silver is not the new 'Silver' dammit.