I know it only takes one silly GM to make a pitch, but 6.5m for Gardiner....Holy overpayment. No cap, two short on the roster and Holl as a starting Dman, I don't think it works cap wise at all for the Leafs.

6.5 is a DISCOUNT for Gardiner
I don't know who you were watching last year
I'm not happy with him at 4.05

Is Gardiner a third-pairing defenseman, or a $6.5m defenseman?

He can't be both....

I don't think Leafs will do this, but if Jake hist 50 points again market value will likely exceed 6.5M.

Really just demonstating the ability to retain #34, #29 and #16 without too much difficulty. Also, i forgot Carrick, so we can add him in somewhere. Ozhganov, Holl, Rosen, Borgmann and Liljegren are wild cards at this point.

Right, right, right, and right but incomplete: Holl, Liljegren AND Ozhiganov on defense -- three rookies is two too many. WAY too many.

"Adding Carrick in somewhere" means he replaces Holl, at an additional cost of $1M or more. Now you're $1M over the cap, with two slots to fill.

How about taking the $6.5M you want to pay Gardiner and spending $2.2M on a LD (free-agent or trade), $1.2M on Carrick (I think he's going to come in at $1.95M), and $1M each on your two missing forwards?

Leafs are not paying gardiner over 5M (Reilly's #)

Those D men may not be rookies next year but yes still lack experience
I'm not too worried about 5 and 6 as they can be found for minimal cap

Kapanen gets more than johnnson
More games under his belt. Higher ceiling. And better pedigree
You misspelled lindholm w 4C
Roughly same $$ so inconsequential

But Jake is. He'll play 60 games and good or sometimes even very good level, then he'll play 20 games of bonehead Jake. It's like in the original Star Trek when Kirk is divided into two people, the good Kirk and the bad Kirk. Eventually they figured away to put the two Kirks back together to get the original. Unfortunately the Leafs do not have 24th century technology to merge these two sides of Gardiner into one.
I just think the Leafs as shown will have a cap issue signing Gardiner anyway. Other players can/will move in and play LHD.