Quoting: brokos73
Faulk is an upgrade from Gardiner, hands down and he plays the right side which the Leafs are clearly weak on as of now. Sure there's help coming in a couple years but the time to win is now and they can afford to give up a very late 1st round pick in my opinion.
Perceived flaws??? I'm pretty sure Jake and that right side of the defense is an obvious flaw and has been for years.
They finished with the 12th best defence last year. Tavares makes them a better team this coming season than last years squad. So if we improve on a 12th place finish and move into the top 10 best defensive teams, that'll be great right there. On top of that, our offense is going to be insane this year. So the Leafs will be scary without a single move.
As for Faulk being way better than Gardiner, who scored more points last year? Over their career, Faulk has 12 more points in 12 less games. Faulk has been a plus player 1 time in his career while Gardiner is coming off a season where he was plus 24. Gardiner is known as an elite puck mover who's gambles can sometimes hurt their team. He's also soft in the corners and isn't overly good at boxing out players.
Faulk is known as an elite level puck mover who's gambles sometimes hurt his team and he's also not great in his own end.
So they are the same player, the only difference is the hand they shoot with. So Faulk isn't an upgrade, its taking a problem and moving it to the other side of the ice at the cost of a good defencemen in Gardiner and a 1st round pick. I likely wouldn't have an issue if it was Gardiner for Faulk straight up or even Gardiner and Leivo for Faulk, but far better trades can be made that'll cost less and help the Leafs a lot more.