Leo Komarov has just finished making fun of the size of Jake Gardiner’s head, and now Gardiner is sitting in his stall after an off-day practice, and he’s thinking. The Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman has been trying to explain what goes through that head of his — which, truth be told, is quite big — when he gets creative on the ice, when he decides to make a move just inside the opposing team’s blue line to evade one player, then bounces the puck off the boards to himself to get past another, instead of going a safer route, like, say, getting the puck in deep.

“You just gotta pick your spots,” Gardiner finally offers, with a smile and a shrug. “I try to make a lot of plays, and sometimes it’s not gonna work out. Some people might call that high risk, but realistically, it’s making plays to get your team in the offensive zone, or to keep them there.”

In three seasons as Gardiner’s teammate, fellow defenceman Roman Polak has learned one thing about playing with the smooth skater on Toronto’s blue line: “Always be ready, because you never know what he’s going to do.” Polak laughs when he considers whether he’s ever played with a partner like Gardiner. “Actually, never,” Polak says, shaking his head. “He is all by himself.”