I’m thinking more of a one or two year deal 3-4 million

Gardiner is worth more than that. I know he hasn't signed yet but I'm sure he's received more lucrative offers than a 4 X 2

Why waste that much cap space on something that’s not overly needed ?

It's still an improvement on the current D corps and you have so much cap space. OP has 5 players in the pressbox and you still have 1.6 mil to spare

Cap space not an issue this year, but the 2 years after it will be. Gardiner is not worth losing one of Montreal's RFA's next year, and the year after is even worse for UFA's.

they won't have the space in 2 years, take a gander at the contracts expiring. Mete, Gallagher, Domi, Danault, Petry, KK, Poehling, Lehkonen, Armia, Tatar and not to mention the various prospects in the minors and reserve list players who haven't been signed yet. That space will dry up fast

Just so I understand the thought process. You're concerned that this move would make MTL better for the next 2 seasons and by the 3rd year they might have to make some sort of decision? I still don't see the drawback. Your worst case scenario is that you have a lot of talented hockey players (mostly RFAs) that need to be re-signed. At which point you'll either ship out other players to make space for them or you trade them for other quality assets.

If only it was that easy. When you are forced to trade away assets because you need cap space, you will most likely come out on the losing end of the deal. Toronto just pissed away a 1rst round pick because they needed cap for this year to retain their good young players. Winnipeg is flirting with major issues with their line up this year because of cap issues. If trading cap away is as easy you make it out to be, why hasn't Winnipeg done it already? Why did it cost Toronto a 1rst to get cap space and get back no other quality assets? Teams that take the view of worrying about future years down the road instead of today will not be very successful long term. In this case Gardiner would make the team marginally better, but not significantl enough to incur the risks of losing other players to cap issues. There is a reason why no one has signed him yet, NHL teams have more inside knowledge of players then we do.

So we all understand your thought process .. you want to sign a guy for 6 million who has back problems and is a very small upgrade to the d-core (not to mention Romanov will most likely be playing next year) so you’d have an abundance of LHD .. if anything you use that money on a top 6-9 fwd

Upgrading your top 6 is definitely something worth considering but the entire left side on D is pretty feeble. Best player on that side is Kulak and I wouldn't expect Romanov to be playing next year as he'll probably need a little more time to develop. Not sure the severity of Gardiner's back issues but at this point its all speculation. If it does become an issue he can be buried on LTIR but if it isn't an issue I think he would be a major upgrade for MTL as he would easily be the best LHD on the Habs.