With William Nylander back (in a 5-4 OT loss to Red Wings), Leafs can find out who they really are.
Nylander’s return makes club whole, giving Tavares first taste of what he signed up for
John Tavares was talking about planning towards a charitable foundation, and the Toronto Maple Leafs centre said he would approach it the way he approaches everything else. He will take it seriously.
“When you do something like that, you want to do it right,” said Tavares before scoring his 18th goal in Toronto’s 5-4 loss to the Detroit Red Wings, with winger William Nylander back in the fold after his two-month holdout. “And you want to take your time and be thorough and diligent and make sure you have a good grasp on what you’re doing.”
That’s how the 28-year-old Tavares approached free agency last summer: His agency, CAA Sports, prepared a 77-page booklet on the candidate teams — rosters, salary caps, depth charts, organizational talent, cities — and he pored over it. And he chose Toronto.
Thursday night, with William Nylander returning to the lineup and Auston Matthews healthy, Toronto got its first glimpse of what Tavares chose. The Leafs looked sluggish at times, and disjointed at others. The goaltending from backup Garret Sparks was below the Frederik Andersen standard. Nylander wasn’t ready to be himself, and was really only in because a bus breakdown cancelled practice Wednesday. It was 4-1 Detroit through two.
And then the Leafs got a goal from Tavares, and another from Zach Hyman, and with 8:24 left a goal from a flying Andreas Johnsson, who was part of the organization’s young talent section of the brochure. But they couldn’t finish it off: in overtime, Tavares turned a puck over in the offensive zone and Dylan Larkin ended it.
With that out of the way, the Leafs get to go back to figuring out their season. It’s got promise.
“It was just too good,” said Tavares of his summer decision. “It was hard to not think this was the perfect timing, the perfect fit. It was just so hard to say no, (even) with how much I invested in New York, how much I cared about that organization and that place … But considering where I’m at in my career, and where these guys are, the core of this group and how young they are, the potential in the immediate and really through the whole length of my contract, which was a big deal for me.
“Looking at the facts, everything that was in front of me, and that feeling, that instinctive feeling. It was the right fit, and there would be no other time like this again. I couldn’t say no.”
And then Nylander held out, and there was a real chance he wasn’t going to sign.
But he secured a promise that he would not be traded from general manager Kyle Dubas — which Nylander made sure to make public when he spoke to the media about the deal — and with Matthews back too, this was the first time the full, post-Tavares Leafs were all in one place.
“I think we’ll see a good team that was already playing well and got a good player,” said Andersen. “I mean, all respect to Willie, but it’s not him or nothing; it’s like we add another great player to this program and this team, and it’s another marginal gain to get a player back or get extra depth. That’s really what it is. You can’t guarantee anything by adding one player — we’ve seen that multiple times in trade deadline deals, where you think: this team’s going to win the Cup for sure now. How often does that happen?
“But good thing for us, he’s been here for a few years already … there are players who are higher threats to score, and I would say Willie is in that category. You add another player for teams to keep track of. He might be the one scoring, or it might open up space for other guys. You can’t match against all four lines unless you’re a really good team, and if you’re really deep on good defensive players. And even then, it’s another wave that keeps coming at you. Anyway, that’s how I see Willie coming back.”
Andersen added, “winning covers a lot of things … it’s really a matter of just staying the course and doing the right things. That’s when sometimes something special comes about, and it’s the habits that create those wins.”
So now it’s habits, health — Andersen tops that list — and the vision that the franchise sold to Tavares when he left Long Island.
The Leafs sold Tavares on playing with the 21-year-old Mitch Marner, who entered Thursday on a 114-point pace and got an assist on a slightly off night; they sold him on Matthews, who scored 15 goals in his first 14 games and got an assist, too; and Morgan Rielly, who set up Tavares to get to 31 points in 29 games, after last year’s career-best 52. And they sold Nylander.
“I mean, nobody’s going to play 25 minutes up front,” said coach Mike Babcock. “If that’s what they want, they have to play on a team with way less players. But in the end we all want the same thing: we want to win and have a lot of success long term. We’re going to find a way to make it go.”
Everyone’s here now, and it won’t be seamless. Hell, they could chase a Cup and lose in the first round. But now the Leafs get to find out what they really are. And starting now, Tavares, the biggest hockey free agent in years, will find out just how right he was.