if this is what happens i would like to see riley gardiner, muzzin barie, dermot and either liligren or sandin. would be pretty good. and if they go long term on gardiner they could always get him to go on ltir with his back being bad.

They can't just get him to go on ltir. Prior to last season he played almost 82 games each year and yes he was hurt last year but there is no indication of it being an on-going problem. He hasn't signed yet because he wants to stay with the Leafs and is waiting to see what they can do

They're not going to run Gardiner on the right, and Rielly's stats are considerably better on the left. Dermott has at least shown he can play the right in the A, and had a decent showing last season on the right. This way, our defensive depth is insane on the left and still stronger on the right than it was last season.

The leafs won't be trading Ceci to bring Gardiner back

Has everyone suddenly forgotten that Gardiner has been a consistent liability in the playoffs and is not a good defender. This team is only missing defense. Fix the problem instead of signing it to contract

Arizona has only 21 players signed, (22 with Hossa) and only 175k in cap space. There is no way they can take on Ceci contract and not screwing up their cap. On day 1 of season they put Hossa on LTIR and fillout their roster for 23 players. This can not happen if they trade for Ceci.

Rather have Ceci at 4.5 then Gardiner at all.

I get that there's this hope that Ceci was just put into a terrible situation in Ottawa, and maybe he was, but it's still more of a risk in a season we're really looking to push for a finals appearance.



I'd rather have Gards as a third pair LD to stack the team for a single season. The guy has shown he's a consistent playmaker, and with Rielly and Muzzin there it would be silly not to take advantage of the situation.



Arizona was a gimmie team pick. It could be literally anyone with the cap space and low round pick willing to trade up to an earlier round for what's essentially a single season cap dump.



This comes across as pretty blind to facts. Ceci may be younger, but Gardiner has been consistent in pushing play up the ice. Yes he makes misjakes, but having him play third pair to really stack our D is not a bad idea. When Dermott returns, he can play second pair on the right with Muzzin as he has experience with the right side and is a puck moving defenseman with a more defensively sound partner, and then give Lilijegren/Holl/Marincin/Whoever a shot at the third pair RD sheltered with Gardiner. I don't see a problem with this if Marner did take the lower $ value.