our blueliners received votes, but Los

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MILTON – The chatter percolated furiously for months and then finally on an early July day in the summer of 2012, Luke Schenn was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers for James van Riemsdyk. The fifth overall selection in the 2008 draft, Schenns name had bubbled with such intense fervour in trade rumours that then-Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke went so far as to assert that no deal was coming six months before it finally did. "We are not in trade discussions involving Luke Schenn," Burke said wearily before a game against the Buffalo Sabres. "I told Luke thats not a guarantee he wouldnt be traded if something materialized but were not in trade discussions with any team about him right now. We havent offered him to anybody. I dont know where the rumours started, but I told him thats not happening." Like Schenn, Jake Gardiner has heard his name bandied about in trade chatter and figured that one day he might follow his former defence partner out the door of Toronto. He was on tentative footing with the organization or so he figured in light of the incessant discussion of his name in trade talks. "Yeah, there was always thoughts about that – whether Im going to get traded or not," Gardiner told TSN.ca from the teams annual charity golf tournament on Monday. "I just had always heard talk about it." That chatter quieted some last month. With Brendan Shanahan firmly at the helm as the teams new president and change coming in all directions within the organization, the Leafs extended a five-year deal to the recently turned 24-year-old, ending all the speculation while securing the former first-round pick as a piece near the front of the teams future. Having mostly dangled at arms length from the club to that point, the show of faith was unexpected. A restricted free agent, Gardiner expected a shorter deal, perhaps the kind of prove yourself, bridge contract Nazem Kadri had gotten one year earlier. "Just kind of shows they have that faith in me as a player," Gardiner said of the five-year pact, which is worth a total of $20.25 million. That faith had certainly been tested from the point of his arrival in the winter of 2011, be it because of misguided and sometimes poor decision-making or soft defensive play. An undercurrent of impatience at his overall progress seemed to linger as that standout rookie campaign edged further and further into the rearview mirror. He heard his name out there and wondered whether, like Schenn, he would be next to go, whether all the rumours and speculation would finally lead him elsewhere. Another trade deadline came and went this past March and Gardiner remained, but persistence of disconnect between himself and the club simmered (never hotter than March of a year earlier when Gardiner remained a Marlie, much to his and his former agents chagrin). At his season-ending press conference in mid-April, Randy Carlyle spoke to a revealing exit interview with one of his players and while not naming said player explicitly, expressed surprise that a "young defenceman playing a roving style" felt his "leash was short where we believed it was longer" and who he compared himself with in the league, "that was kind of shocking". Gardiner, though, says his relationship with the head coach is fine, nothing more than a hard-edged, old-school type trying to pull out the best from his group. The "leash", he said, was a function of performance, longer with success. "Hes a coach that pushes his players, especially the young guys," Gardiner said of Carlyle, the former spending most of his summer back home in Minnetonka, Minnesota, "He knows we have more to our games and he just wants us to get to that level." "Hopefully I play well," he continued. "Thats pretty much the base of it. If I play well our relationship will be great. Even if I dont hell be pushing me so itll be good either way." Whether Gardiner gets to the level Carlyle expects, the level hes shown capable of hitting and then even exceeding is the looming question. The hopeful signs have been there. The consistency has not. While the team sputtered into another disastrous playoff miss, Gardiner generally excelled down the stretch, looking more like his assertive self while depositing five goals and 14 points in the final 21 games. He also finished as the teams best possession player and leading minute-eater at even-strength. Can he put it all together? The Leafs are gambling that he can. "Both them and I are excited for the next five years." Authentic Trevor Ariza Rockets Jersey .com) - John Wall supplied 24 points and 11 assists in leading the Washington Wizards to a 102-91 win over the New York Knicks on Christmas Day. Cheap Authentic Rockets Jerseys . Fifth-seeded Cilic gained his fourth title in Zagreb and became the third Croat overall to win at least 10 career titles. Cilic also lifted his career record in Zagreb to 22-4, winning 20 of his last 21 matches at the event. http://www.authenticrocketsproshop.com/ ... er-Jersey/. -- At the beginning of training camp, Andrew Bogut set a goal to play all 82 regular-season games and regain his place among the NBAs best centres. Cheap Houston Rockets Jerseys . -- Top-seed Shahar Peer and Canadian Eugenie Bouchard advanced to the second round of the inaugural WTA Citi Open. Cheap Michael Beasley Jersey . You can watch the game live on TSN and TSN GO at 3pm et/Noon pt. The Thunder reclaimed the home-court advantage LA took with a Game 1 win on Friday night with a 118-112 road win in Game 3.The NHL All-Star Weekend is in the rear-view mirror and game action resumes Tuesday with 11 on tap. Before we drop the puck on the remaining 40-plus per cent of the 2014-15 regular season - by the way, the trade deadline is five weeks today and the Stanley Cup playoffs start in 11 weeks - let’s take one more moment to reflect on what we’ve seen in the NHL so far. More precisely, let’s have a look at what NHL head coaches think and feel in TSN’s Who’s Best survey. Just prior to the NHL All-Star break, TSN surveyed 20 NHL head coaches - 10 in the East; 10 in the West - to determine Who’s Best in five categories: Best Team; Best Goalie; Best Defenceman; Best Player; and last but not least, Best Coach. There were four stipulations. One - don’t vote for your own players or team. Two - vote for only one person/team per category. Three - vote only for players/teams/coaches in your own conference and four - base your votes on what you’ve seen on the ice this season. So without further ado, here are the results of TSN’s 2014-15 Who’s Best NHL Coaches Survey: EASTERN CONFERENCE BEST TEAM: It’s only fitting the New York Rangers and New York Islanders play in the first game back after the All-Star break, because those were the top two teams in the East, according to survey results. The Rangers, who went to the Cup final last season and currently sit third in the Metropolitan Division (behind Pittsburgh and the Islanders and just ahead of Washington) received five votes, compared to four for the Islanders, who sit in first place in the division. The only other team to get a vote was Pittsburgh. BEST GOALIE: It wasn’t unanimous, but Montreal’s Carey Price ran away with it, securing eight of 10 votes. New York Ranger Henrik Lundqvist got the other two. BEST DEFENCEMAN: Only four blueliners - Ranger Ryan McDonagh, Tampa’s Victor Hedman, Pittsburgh’s Kris Letang and Montreal’s P.K. Subban - received votes. McDonagh, with four votes, edged Hedman, who had three. Letang had two and Subban one. BEST COACH: There wasn’t a lot of consensus on this one, with seven coaches getting at least one vote. Tampa’s Jon Cooper, Florida’s Gerard Gallant, Washington’s Barry Trotz, Detroit’s Mike Babcock and Montreal’s Michel Therrien garnered one vote apiece, leaving the Rangers’ Alain Vigneault and the Islanders’ Jack Capuano to battle it out for the remaining five votes. Capuano got the nod, getting thhree to Vigneault’s two.dddddddddddd BEST PLAYER: It says something about the Eastern Conference that just one player – New York Ranger Rick Nash – got more than one vote. So the Blueshirt winger took the title of Best Player with a grand total of two votes. Players who got one vote apiece: Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby; Philadelphia’s Jake Voracek; Tampa’s Steven Stamkos and Tyler Johnson; Boston’s Patrice Bergeron; Detroit’s Pavel Datsyuk; and New York Islander John Tavares. WESTERN CONFERENCE Generally speaking, there was more consensus in the West than the East. Here are the results: BEST TEAM: Anaheim and Nashville sit atop their respective divisions and the Ducks and Predators are one-two in the Western Conference overall standings, so it’s not a surprise that they got two votes apiece, the same as the Chicago Blackhawks. What may surprise some is that the St. Louis Blues picked up the other four votes to emerge as Best Team in the Western Conference. BEST GOALIE: No contest. Nashville’s Pekka Rinne (currently injured) was the unanimous choice, picking up every available vote. Rinne leads the league in wins (29) and has a .931 save percentage. BEST DEFENCEMAN: Only four blueliners received votes, but Los Angeles King Drew Doughty carried the day with four votes. Incidentally, Doughty also received one vote as Best Player. The remaining six Best Defenceman votes were split evenly (two each, if you’re math challenged) between Nashville’s Shea Weber, Calgary’s Mark Giordano and St. Louis’s Kevin Shattenkirk, who sits one point behind Giordano on the list of the league’s top-scoring blueliners. BEST COACH: Nashville’s Peter Laviolette, who has guided the Preds to second overall (behind only Anaheim) in the NHL at the break, was the runaway winner, getting six of 10 votes. Winnipeg’s Paul Maurice, who has the surprising and exciting Jets comfortably in the first wild card spot in the West and seven points ahead of Calgary, received two votes. Calgary’s Bob Hartley and St. Louis’s Ken Hitchcock got one each. BEST PLAYER: Unlike the East, the West has a clear-cut winner. Anaheim’s Ryan Getzlaf received eight of 10 votes. The only other vote getters were Kings defenceman Doughty and St. Louis scoring winger Vladimir Tarasenko. So there you have it, TSN’s 2014-15 Who’s Best NHL Coaches Survey. 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