2024 NHL Draft player profile: Evan Gardner, Saskatoon Blades
Evan Gardner tried to keep his expectations realistic entering his first season with the Saskatoon Blades.
The 6-foot-2, 174-pound netminder knew he was coming into a competitive room with a team primed to challenge for a WHL Championship.
“The goal of mine coming into the season was to try and be the best backup in the league,” Gardner said.
And as for the NHL Draft?
“I was just kind of hoping that somebody would take a chance on me late if that opportunity came.”
As Gardner recalls the modest goal, he’s in Phoenix, Ariz. for a mini-combine held by NHL Utah ahead of the 2024 NHL Entry Draft, which is set for June 28-29 in Las Vegas, Nev.
He’s gone from being tagged as a ‘W’ prospect by NHL Central Scouting- signifying a potential sixth or seventh-round pick- to slotting in at seventh among North American goaltenders in the agency’s final rankings for the season.
It’s a staggering rise through the ranks for Saskatoon’s third-round pick from the 2021 WHL Prospects Draft.
And it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t forced the Blades coaching staff to take notice with some scene-stealing performances.
“At the start of the year, I was playing once every two weeks and that was obviously tough,” Gardner admitted. “You’ve got to come to the rink every day and kind of put your work boots on and be resilient, because you never know when you’re going to get your opportunity.”
After playing only four games in the first two months of the season, Gardner ended up going 10-4-0-1 through the first half of the campaign, posting a .928 save percentage and a 2.02 goals-against average.
“When a player has 13,14, 15 games in a row where their save percentage is over .900, it’s really hard to ignore that,” Blades Head Coach Brennan Sonne said. “It’s hard to ignore his goals against versus chance against ratio, which was extremely high- some of the highest numbers I’ve ever seen.
He got more and more games and made more and more saves, then the attention came. I remember very vividly this conversation in January. It was, you know, ‘How are you doing with all this now that all the interest has picked up and the phone calls have picked up and everyone’s reaching out about you? How have you handled that, and how are you doing with all that?’ And he said, ‘You know what, I feel really good about it. It hasn’t impacted me at all.”
Rather than becoming the best backup in the league, Gardner’s play turned the Blades’ crease into a 1A and 1B situation as Saskatoon posted its first 50-win season since 2011.
The Fort St. John, B.C. product closed out his rookie campaign with a 25-5-0-2 record, leading all qualified WHL goaltenders and setting a single-season franchise record in goals-against average (1.91) and save percentage (.927), while tying for second in shutouts (4).
Gardner made 30 or more saves on seven occasions, highlighted by a career-high 33 saves in a 3-1 win over Brandon on February 4, 2024.
He never lost in back-to-back appearances in the regular season, didn’t lose in regulation after January 17, picked up five WHL weekly awards, snagged Goaltender of the Month honours for March and earned nominations for WHL Rookie and Humanitarian of the Year- and he’s doing it as a type-1 diabetic.
“I wasn’t expecting that coming into my first year,” Gardner admitted. “It was a true honour because I feel like it’s something that I had never really gotten before in my hockey career leading up to that point. I was just super thankful, and obviously I put in a lot of time and hard work this season to get those accolades.”
Gardner continued his impressive play into the postseason, going 10-1-3-0 with a 2.33 GAA, .910 save percentage and a shutout.
While the playoffs wouldn’t have a fairytale ending for the Blades, the group did battle to the end in a dramatic Eastern Conference Championship that saw six of seven games against the eventual champion Moose Jaw Warriors go to overtime.
“There aren’t many 18-year-olds that are playing in a conference final,” Sonne added. “There’s not many 18-year-olds that are starting in a Game 7 or playing overtime in a conference final. Those moments are so rare, I think it only benefits him. In the long run, you grow the most from those rare moments. Doing rare things allows you to have confidence that you can excel in those rare moments.”
Gardner hopes to experience another rare moment at the end of the month by hearing his name called at the NHL Entry Draft.
The event runs from June 28-29 at the Sphere.
