TAVARES HAS MOST TO GAIN AND MOST TO LOSE IN THESE PLAYOFFS
First-year captain has posted big stats in his career but has little post-season success
With 24 teams in the mix for the Stanley Cup, the expectations might be different for the Toronto Maple Leafs when the post-season begins sometime this summer. But they haven’t changed one bit for John Tavares.
He knows what is at stake — even if the stakes have changed.
As a first-year captain of the Leafs, he has the most to gain. He also has the most to lose. Forget about winning the play-in series against Columbus. If the Leafs don’t get to at least the second round, Tavares will carry the burden of disappointment more so than Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner or even GM Kyle Dubas.
After all, he’s been carrying it around for the past decade.
It’s been 11 years since Tavares entered the league as the No. 1 overall pick. During that time, only seven players have put up more points than the 29-yearold, which puts him in some pretty elite company. But when it comes to playoff success, he has more in common with Matt Duchene and Taylor Hall than he does Sidney Crosby and Patrick Kane.
Of the seven players ranked above him in regular-season scoring, only Steven Stamkos and Claude Giroux have failed to win a championship. Both, however, have reached the Stanley Cup final. The two below Tavares — Anze Kopitar and Phil Kessel — have each won two Cups.
Tavares, who has made the playoffs four times in his career, has won just one round.
It’s why the Mississauga, Ont., native, who was signed as a free agent to try to get a young Leafs team over the hump, is not taking this year’s post-season format lightly. He wants to go deep and win. As the third-highest paid player in the league, he has a sort of financial obligation to do so.
At the same time, if there was ever a year where players deserved a free pass, this would be it.
These playoffs, or whatever you want to call them, are nothing like we’ve ever seen before. Players, who only began skating in small groups this week, have been off the ice for three months because of the coronavirus pandemic. Once the post-season begins, either in July or August or September, it will include teams that probably shouldn’t be there.
With a truncated regular season, a play-in round and a round robin to determine seeding, you might as well already start etching an asterisk beside whatever team happens to win the Stanley Cup. But asterisk or not, there’s still a championship up for grabs.
“I think there’s a lot of ways to possibly look at this,” Tavares said in an online Zoom conference call on Tuesday. “I think at the end of the day we’re still competing for the Stanley Cup and to win it is going to be extremely difficult. We’re working with circumstances we’ve never dealt with before, so there’s a lot of unknowns.
“I think certainly the urgency from our group, from all the guys on the team, us being in contact with one another, and from management and staff, the urgency is extremely high to take advantage of this opportunity, to feel fortunate that there’s a good chance that we’re going to be able to finish the season and compete for a Stanley Cup and we’re going to be a part of this.
“As an athlete, as a player, I don’t really look at it as a free pass. This is an opportunity to win a Stanley Cup. Don’t take any of those opportunities for granted.”
Indeed, who knows what will happen this year.
This was a difficult year for the Leafs and for Tavares. After reaching a career-best in goals in 2018-19, he spent most of the first month nursing a hand injury. When he returned, neither he nor the team looked the same. Mike Babcock was fired as head coach in November. Under Sheldon Keefe, the team couldn’t find the same level of consistency as before.
By the time the season was put on pause, the Leafs were clinging to a playoff spot.
They looked like they would be first-round fodder for either Tampa Bay or Boston. Now, they have to get past Columbus to even reach the first round.
It looks like a harder road to get to the final. But no one can be sure after all that has happened.
Maybe the time off will benefit a Leafs team that never got a chance to take a deep breath and learn Keefe’s system. Maybe they’ll be healthy, rested and confident. Maybe they will go into the playoffs with less pressure and less expectations.
Maybe Tavares, who was good in Game 1 against the Bruins last year before disappearing for the rest of the series, will lead the Leafs in the same way Alex Ovechkin eventually led the Washington Capitals.
If so, asterisk or not, the narrative surrounding his post-season performances will change for good.
As an athlete, as a player, I don’t really look at it as a free pass. This is an opportunity to win a Stanley Cup. Don’t take any of those opportunities for granted.