On Feb 9th, 2011 Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke traded defenseman Francois Beauchemin to the Anaheim Ducks for Joffrey Lupul, and prospect Jake Gardiner; a player he drafted during his prior tenure with the Ducks. With seven years as a Maple Leaf now under his belt, Gardiner is now 27 years old. These are the prime years of Jake Gardiner, the narrative that he is still just a “kid” is over. Jake is, what he is.

What “is” Jake Gardiner though? An equal split of the Toronto Maple Leafs fanbase will tell you that Jake Gardiner is a good defenseman and a bad defenseman.

What if I told you Jake Gardiner isn’t good, he is great?

Jake Gardiner is without question, a bonafide second pair offensive defenseman in the NHL. Scoring from the back end of your roster in this era is crucial, and through Gardiner’s tenure with the Maple Leafs he has consistently been able to provide the team with 30-40 points a season. Looking through Gardiner’s production since his debut, it isn’t exactly “spectacular”, but what stands out is his production under Mike Babcock. The last three seasons playing under Mike Babcock, Gardiner has increased his scoring output by roughly ten points each season.

The 2017/2018 season saw Gardiner’s highest scoring output of his career, posting a remarkable 52 points. (16th in the among all NHL defensemen)

The image below shows as follows: GP-G-A-PTS

In an era where every player on the ice is expected to provide scoring, elite offensive defensemen are at a premium. Defensemen the likes of John Klingberg, John Carlson, Brent Burns all play a significant role in providing scoring for their respective teams. What is the difference between a John Carlson and Jake Gardiner? Absolutely nothing.

Say it with me: Jake Gardiner is a top-20 offensive defenseman.

Jake Gardiner isn’t as spectacular defensively as he is offensively, and he certainly isn’t in with the likes of Ryan Suter or Marc-Edouard Vlasic as a shutdown defender. What makes Gardiner so valuable is his ability to generate a significant amount of offence in the ice time and situations he is given. Among all defensemen in the NHL (minimum 300 minutes played) only Doughty, Orlov, Ceci, and Burns have more total time on ice at even strength than Jake Gardiner. Gardiner is on the ice a lot because he is there to generate as much offence as he can, not defence.

It is without a doubt that Gardiner had a terrible Game 7 these past playoffs, which ended the Maple Leafs 2017/2018 season at the hands of the Boston Bruins. It is not surprising to see Jake’s game seven highlighted the way it was, not only by the media but the entire Maple Leafs fanbase. We need to step back for a second here and try to answer a question almost all Leafs fans asked themselves: “Why was Gardiner still on the ice if he wasn’t playing well?”

The answer to that question falls on the coaching staff and Mike Babcock, but it isn’t the reason every critic wants it to be for. Quite simply, Jake Gardiner makes things happen. Lou Lamoriello knows it, the coaching staff knows it, Mike Babcock knows it, and that’s why Gardiner is on the ice. A player with offensive upside is more likely to create high reward plays, and with that gives the risk of potentially ending up with the puck in the back of your net.

Let’s dive into Gardiner’s 2017/2018 season. Gardiner ended with: 5 goals, 46 assists, and 52 total points. His totals were good for 16th in the NHL among all defensemen in scoring. If you take a look at the top 10 scoring defensemen in the NHL for the 2017/2018 season, you have the likes of seven 1st-pair defenders. The three 2nd-pair defensemen in the top 10 are: Shayne Gostisbehere, PK Subban, and Torey Krug. If you compare Jake Gardiner’s totals to the top 10 list, he is almost scoring at a 1st-pair pace. The closest comparable to Gardiner on this list is Torey Krug and aside from his career year this season, Torey is almost neck and neck to Gardiner.

The only difference between Torey Krug and Jake Gardiner are goal totals and Krug’s importance on the Boston power-play. Jake Gardiner played power-play minutes all season with William Nylander and Auston Matthews, not bad for a second unit right? For any other team in the league, this unit would eat up most of the power-play time; but for the Maple Leafs, it was a struggle to even get this unit on the ice in the first place. If it wasn’t already frustrating enough for the Hyman-Matthews-Nylander line to draw all of the power-plays, the Tyler Bozak unit was almost a sure cash-in with the man advantage. Bozak (13PPP), Rielly (25PPP), Kadri (19PPP), Marner (27PPP), JVR (20PPP).

Krug was able to cash in on 24PPP, compared to Gardiner’s 15PPP. The Rielly/Bozak unit may be reunited next season (although Bozak is a UFA) or, Matthews’ unit may very well turn it around and have their own success with Gardiner on the blue line.

Another thing to consider when looking at Jake Gardiner’s production, is how many primary points he scores. With 27 total primary points for the season, 22 times Gardiner assisted on a play that directly ended up in a goal for the Maple Leafs. Just for reference, Erik Karlsson scored 37 total primary points. Among those 37 times, 28 of them were primary assists. If you compare primary scoring, Gardiner playing 2nd-pair minutes is only 6 points behind arguably the most prolific scoring defenseman in the history of the game. Again to add some more fuel to that, this is without the extra power-play time Gardiner should be playing.

Each year Gardiner has played under Mike Babcock, he has been able to score at least 10 more total points than his previous totals. On a team that is getting younger, faster, and more skilled, is it really out of the question to project Gardiner to score 62-65 points next season? The answer should be no. Jake Gardiner has the skill to score 50+ points a season, and if he gets some luck on the power-play he can absolutely get to 60 points, maybe even 70 if he has a really good year offensively…we’ve all seen it happen before.

So let me ask you this, is Jake Gardiner a good defenseman? By all accounts, he is one of the few reasons why the Toronto Maple Leafs even ended up with 105pts to set a franchise record. He is the reason why the Toronto Maple Leafs are a young and exciting team that scores a lot of goals. Jake Gardiner is what every team wants in a second pair defenseman.

A player is not defined by one game, he is defined by what he can do the next game. There will be a next game for Gardiner, and until then we all need to remind ourselves that he isn’t a good defenseman, he is a great defenseman.