saying he blows up under pressure because you notice that happening, but having that not be the objective truth in samples large enough to mean anything, and siding with how you feel over the evidence to form your opinion is exactly that.
What do you mean not the objective truth? I'm starting to think you're the one with the feelings here.
you can't develop sentimental attachments to players.
Gardiner has been generally a pretty good playoff performer who had a really bad game 7 last year and one gaff in a game 7 this year that hurt us - those look bad but its way too small of a sample to call it a trend, I think it's in human nature to underestimate the element of random chance and see patterns where they don't really exist.
He's had some of his worst games when we need him most. That isn't a good playoff performer.
It's impossible for the sample size to be "large". we don't win playoff rounds. I can only comment on the ones he appears in, right? How many more chances do you want to give him to turn over the puck and blow it at a critical time?
What, out of curiousity, would be an "adequate" sample size in your mind? How many critical playoff games would it take?
If you were evaluating him against a similar level of low-event dman line a Mattias Ekholm, I think the real deciding factor would be game situation - you'd want Ekholm to protect the lead but Gardiner if you were chasing it, so all you can do is try to guess which situation your team will be in and place your bet, then you're at the whim of the universe. Also I think the differnce between how Ekholm and Gardiner are viewed highlights the feelings effect, they're objectively very similar level players but the consensus view on them is a long way from that.
what a bizarre comparison.
anyway, I think we're done here. I've explained several objective non-emotional points why he won't be back, but you keep talking about feelings.
