Why a Gardiner-for-Myers trade would make sense for Leafs, Jets

Pure hockey trades rarely happen in today's NHL, but if Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas and Winnipeg Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff sat down and talked shop, they just might be able to pull off a blockbuster deal that could help both teams next season.

Here's the proposal:

Myers and Gardiner were chosen five picks apart in the first round of the 2008 NHL Draft, both are 28 years old, and both are heading into the final year of their contracts. Myers' cap hit is $5.5 million, while Gardiner's is $4.05 million.

Why it makes sense for Jets

The Jets have the luxury of having three stellar right-handed shooting defensemen, but they only have one legitimate left-handed blue-liner in Josh Morrissey. In their projected depth chart, either Ben Chiarot or Dmitry Kulikov would be forced to play in the top four and regularly see tough opposing matchups:

Adding Gardiner, a left-handed rearguard, would allow head coach Paul Maurice to stack one of the league's most enviable top four:

This would force either Kulikov or Chiarot (both left-handed), to play on their off side on the third pairing, but that tandem would play sheltered minutes anyway.

While the current output gives the Jets nice balance and depth, the bottom four aren't exactly the quickest bunch. While those weren't the pairings the Jets deployed in the playoffs (Toby Enstrom left in free agency), their lack of quickness on the back end was exposed by the speed of the Vegas Golden Knights in the Western Conference Final. Gardiner, one of the league's smoothest skaters, would help solve that problem.

Why it makes sense for Leafs

The Maple Leafs only have one right-handed defenseman on their roster primed to get in the lineup on a regular basis next season: Nikita Zaitsev. Connor Carrick is also right-handed, but is probably better suited for a seventh D role. Though left-handed, veteran Ron Hainsey can also play the right side.

As of now, the Leafs' blue line projects to go as follows:

However, if they added Myers into the picture, it could look something like this:

The Leafs still have plenty of cap space for this coming season, so they could go out and sign one of the many available veteran left-handed blue-liners on a one-year deal - such as Dan Hamhuis, Luca Sbisa, or Brooks Orpik - to shore up their bottom pairing.

Myers would bring some much-needed size and strength to Toronto's back end. Pushing Hainsey and Zaitsev down the lineup would serve each player well, while Dermott seems to be ready for an expanded role, which is currently tough to do with both Rielly and Gardiner in the fold.

Would a 1-for-1 swap be fair?

It's already been identified that each player would fit nicely in their new surroundings. However, since Myers and Gardiner are the same age and have virtually the same contractual situation, it needs to be determined which player is better in order to know if it would actually be a fair trade or not.

Offensively, Gardiner has the edge.

There's obviously more than just standard points, though. Since Gardiner averaged over a full minute more of ice time per game, the following stats were calculated on a per 60-minute basis.

The Leafs generated more goals (GF), shot attempts (CF), scoring chances (SCF), and high-danger scoring chances (HDCF) at even strength while Gardiner was on the ice, compared to the Jets while Myers was on the ice.

Offense is only half the game, though, and for a defenseman, protecting your own net is the No. 1 priority. The following graph shows the same stats, but reversed:

As you can see, Myers has the edge in shot attempts, scoring chances, and high-danger scoring chances while they're being calculated against the player's team, rather than for the player's team like in the previous graph.

Considering both players graded equally in Corsica's quality of competition and quality of teammate statistics, it's fair to say the numbers suggest that Gardiner is the superior offensive defenseman, but Myers is better defensively, which was already quite obvious.

The question is, which player is better overall?

Corsica has established a player-rating system to quantify the quality of a player based on one single statistic - almost like Wins Above Replacement (WAR) for baseball. Gardiner and Myers rated very similar.

Obviously, executives in NHL front offices have access to stats that we don't. They also have their own system for evaluating players, which obviously isn't made public. However, if their evaluations of Gardiner and Myers match up with those laid out in this article, a one-for-one swap could truly help both Stanley Cup-caliber teams.

(Stats courtesy: Natural Stat Trick, Corsica)
(Photos courtesy: Getty Images)