Carolina Hurricanes: Jake Gardiner Signs 4-Year Deal

In a signing out of nowhere that most people did not expect, the Carolina Hurricanes have signed former Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman, Jake Gardiner. What does this mean for the upcoming season and other defensemen?

For months now, the Toronto Maple Leafs and restricted free agent Mitch Marner‘s camp have been at war over the details of a contract extension. Marner has been rumored to be desiring around the cap hit of Connor McDavid. The Maple Leafs, at the moment, cannot afford such an extension.

With Jake Gardiner heading to free agency and Gardiner’s reputation in Toronto somewhat marred, the Maple Leafs decided to do business with the Ottawa Senators. The Leafs would give Nikita Zaitsev, Connor Brown, and Michael Carcone, in exchange for Cody Ceci, Ben Harpur, a 2020 3rd round pick, and Aaron Luchuk. It was official: Gardiner’s eight years in Toronto were over.

Although Jake Gardiner had offers from teams about a contract, no team other than the Carolina Hurricanes would budge on giving a long-term contract. In the early afternoon of September 6th, the Hurricanes signed Gardiner to a four-year deal, that would have a cap hit of $4,050,000 yearly. It included no signing bonuses, but did include a modified no-trade clause.

Gardiner has 245 points in 551 games in the National Hockey League, 200 points of which are assists. In the past three seasons, he has been in the positive zone for plus-minus and hit 30 to 52 points. When it comes to the regular season, Gardiner looks marvelous.

However, when it comes to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Gardiner was on the Maple Leafs. That means he was there when the Boston Bruins made a historic comeback being down 4-1 with less than 11 minutes to go, to losing 5-4 in a Game 7 overtime in 2013. He has never seen the playoffs past the second round, as the Leafs lost to the Washington Capitals in 2017, Boston in 2018, and Boston again last season.

In three of those four playoff runs, Gardiner found himself with a -3 in 2013, a -6 in 2018, and a -2 last season. All three of those seasons were the only seasons where they found the Bruins in the first round of the playoffs, the lone series where he has a +2 is against Washington.

Perhaps, moving to a new team (a team with one of the best blue-lines in the league) will help Gardiner return to his full potential. With Rod Brind’Amour as the coach of the Hurricanes, anything is possible. He will have excellent teammates in Jaccob Slavin, Trevor van Riemsdyk, and Justin Faulk… speaking of which…

Adding a new blue-liner in Gardiner really bolsters the blue-line, it also means someone has to go. Currently, the Carolina Hurricanes sit in no-man’s land when it comes to salary cap space with the signing. As it stands now, the signing will only mean Chase Priskie, Roland McKeown, and Jake Bean won’t be seeing a call-up too soon. However, when van Riemsdyk returns from injury, you have an extra defenseman that cannot play.

Faulk and van Riemsdyk will become unrestricted free agents once this season is all said and done. Haydn Fleury and Gustav Forsling will become restricted free agents. All of these players could be asking for a raise; a raise that might be unreasonable and borders on overpayment. When Don Waddell and Faulk’s camp spoke in Vancouver in June to get an extension done early, they couldn’t reach a deal, nor did they seem close to one.

Gardiner is 29; he replaces van Riemsdyk as the oldest defenseman on the team now. Although van Riemsdyk is the second oldest defenseman on the team (which makes him expendable as he plays usually on the second or third line, and he would give the Carolina Hurricanes just enough cap space with his cap hit being $2,300,000), he will not be seeking such a spike in cap hit as Faulk would.

Faulk has a modified no-trade-clause which makes trading him quite difficult. He is one of the fan favorites in Raleigh. When it comes to the statistics though, Faulk has been consistently hitting double digits in the negatives when it comes to plus-minus, until last season. Faulk currently has a cap hit of $4,833,333 and it’s scary to think he’ll be asking for an extension over $5,100,000.. or dare we say it.. $6,000,000.

Question for Cardiac Cane Readers: How do you feel about the signing of Jake Gardiner? If you were Don Waddell, who would you trade to bring the Carolina Hurricanes under the cap?