There was a time Jake Gardiner was considered the Maple Leafs’ most dangerous defenceman for all the wrong reasons.
But Gardiner’s brain-cramp giveaways are fewer and farther between now, and his offence is what makes him a dangerous weapon on the Toronto blue line.
Gardiner scored the first goal and set up the second for the Maple Leafs as Toronto beat Dallas 3-1 Tuesday night at the Air Canada Centre.
“He’s been real solid for us, an elite skater,” Leafs coach Mike Babcock said. “He gets a little haywire and you have to get him back in the barn once in a while, but he’s a real talented guy who moves the puck and doesn’t seem to get in much trouble. He’s got a lot of confidence.”
It was Gardiner’s third multi-point game of the season.
“I went 20 games or something without a goal,” Gardiner said. “I like to shoot it when I can. As a defenceman, you don’t get to score that often and anytime you can contribute like that, it’s fun.”
Nikita Zaitsev and Auston Matthews also scored for the Leafs, who got a terrific goaltending performance from backup Curtis McElhinney, who stopped 39 of 40 shots in his ACC debut. He was beaten only by Tyler Seguin, and made some game-saving stops on Jamie Benn and Patrick Sharp.
“He’s good pro, he gets out on the ice first every single day,” Babcock said of McElhinney. “So when it’s his turn, it’s not lucky that he played good, he earned the right to play good.
“He’s a great example. It’s important for your young guys to see what good pros do.”
McElhinney is 2-2-0 in four appearances as a Leaf, including taking the loss last week in Dallas when starter Frederik Andersen was pulled halfway through the first period.
“You want to be big in (net),” McElhinney said. “Pucks were hitting me. The rebounds were there, but the guys were doing a good job of clearing it out. I felt comfortable the whole game.”
The win was just what the Leafs needed to start the first of a four-game homestand after a 2-3-1 road trip, a trip where the team seemed to lose focus, and forget the style of play preached by the coaching staff.
The win further entrenched the Leafs into a playoff spot, even with Ottawa and two points ahead of Boston in the fight for second and third place in the Atlantic Division. And it was a confidence booster, since the Leafs held on to a third-period lead.
“We got some saves,” Babcock said. “All in all, we’ve turned it (blowing leads) into something it’s not. It’s just a game. Play like the game is tied, and go get the next one. Don’t be conservative. Don’t back up. Don’t protect anything. Just play the game.
“When it goes bad for you, you start making it a worse deal than it is. It’s no big deal. Just play.”
The talk coming in was for the Leafs to somehow get back to the kind of structured play that kept opposition scoring chances to a minimum. The Leafs’ offence kicked into gear on their road trip, but left the defence and goaltending on their own, causing Babcock to call for change.
“When we feel space,” Babcock said before the game, “everyone gets feeling good, we get dancing around and life is great. We think we’re the 1980s Oilers and then bang, bang, bang. We just yell at the goalie: ‘Here they come again.’ It’s fun — I actually think the players are having fun. I think the crowd is having fun and we leave pissed off every night. So why don’t we just play right?”
Babcock likened the style of play to gambling.
“I think it comes right down to a simple decision: Do you want to win or not? I don’t like to feed my family on hope. I like to feed my family on know. I like to know what we’re doing. Now we come down and it’s like going to Vegas — you can gamble or you can play right.”
NOTES: Gardiner’s opening goal added to the Leafs’ league-lead in terms of first-period scoring. It was Toronto’s 115th first-period goal . . . Martin Marincin joined Alexei Marchenko and Josh Leivo as healthy scratches . . . No Leaf scored 20 goals last season; Matthews and Kadri have already hit the mark this season.
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