Jake Gardiner does not deserve the abuse Leafs Nation heaped on him Globe_Sports
TORONTO, ON - APRIL 17: Marcus Johansson #90 of the Boston Bruins skates to check Jake Gardiner #51 of the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game Four of the Eastern Conference First Round during the 2019 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Scotiabank Arena on April 17, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. At the beginning of his end-of-season locker-side chat, a couple of long-serving members of the Toronto Maple Leafs media corps shook Jake Gardiner’s hand.
The Leafs have many sins going back a long time. Someone has to pay for them. For the past couple of years – and with no good reason to do so – they decided it was Jake Gardiner’s turn. It made about as much sense as having a bad day at work and taking it out on the family dog. It is in the nature of playing defence in the NHL that you will occasionally be made to look foolish out there. If those things didn’t happen, hockey would be called Red Rover instead.
Gardiner never developed a defence. His live-for-broadcast personality was and is a combination of earnest and opaque. It makes a person seem as though they don’t care. But when you hammer on someone so hard, for so long that they are flush with the ground, why then be surprised they aren’t all nerves-of-steel in the moment?
There are a lot of reasons the Leafs lost. One of them is that, compared to Boston, they’re soft. The city of Toronto has done some of the tenderizing.No one got it worse than Gardiner. To all those who gleefully went in on him – congratulations, mission accomplished. Gardiner’s ruined, at least as far as Toronto is concerned.
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