Tavares has been good, not great, for Leafs
Maple Leafs captain John Tavares entered Saturday night’s game against the Predators with a career scoring line of 434-563–997, right there on the blue-painted doorstep of becoming the 98th NHLer to reach 1,000 points.
The Leafs figured three or four playoff rounds would be an annual springtime occurrence in Toronto after they filched away the former Islanders centerpiece as a unrestricted free agent in July 2018. The hype and hope have yet to come true.
Tavares’s price: seven years, $11 million per. Like many UFA hires, it turned out to be a steep overpayment when weighed against return — solid, consistent, but not spectacular. Tavares has not been that difference-maker/bonding agent envisioned by then-general manager Kyle Dubas upon taking over the Blue and White corner office. The core strength of the Leafs to evolve over the course of Tavares’s run in Toronto has been, no surprise, their prime draftees, namely first-round picks Morgan Rielly (2012), William Nylander (2014), Mitch Marner (2015), Auston Matthews (2016), and more recently, Matthew Knies (a second-rounder in 2021).
Would all of that talent have emerged and coalesced had Tavares not been brought in to be resident rainmaker? No telling, of course. But we do know that the $11 million annual cap hit devoted to Tavares greatly restricted how Dubas (now the Fenway Sports Group’s fixer of all things in Pittsburgh) could manage Toronto’s roster parts and payroll. For his part, Tavares has delivered with the same metronomic offensive consistency he showed on Long Island, where fans remain, shall we say, peeved that he walked, and did so without having offered himself up weeks before at the trade deadline.
The franchise’s biggest asset, age 27, departed Uniondale for zippo in return, following a season the Islanders again missed the playoffs. The double gut punch. Up until George Santos, Tavares was the Island’s long-standing MVP (Most Vilified Person).
Tavares collected 621 points in 669 games (.928 average) in his days with the Islanders. Entering Saturday night, he had 376 points in 383 games (.982) with his hometown Leafs. Since Tavares entered the league, his 997 points ranked fifth, behind only Sidney Crosby
(1,132), Patrick Kane (1,095), Alex Ovechkin (1,080), and Steven Stamkos (1,036). Those four other names can be found etched on the Stanley Cup.
Once he reaches the 1,000-point plateau, Tavares will be the 32nd in that esteemed group, similar to Patrice Bergeron, never to have posted a 100point season. Bergeron pinned up his career high (79) in 2018-19. Tavares put up his best (88) that same season, his first in Toronto.
“I’m not there yet, so it’s hard to really say,” Tavares, 33, said last weekend, with the Bruins in Toronto, when asked to reflect on what 1,000 points means to him. “But no doubt, I think anyone [who’s done it], coming into the league, growing up and watching players and guys that accomplished that milestone obviously [were] really significant, really impressive. So I’m just trying to keep my head down, going to work and playing well, and let that happen when it happens. But no doubt, I think it’s a special milestone.”
Tavares was selected first overall in the 2009 draft, leaving Tampa Bay to pick up the giant bucket of loose change that was Victor Hedman, now in possession of a Norris Trophy, a Conn Smythe Trophy, and his name twice etched into the Cup.
It was the 6-foot-7-inch Hedman who went on to become the biggest difference-maker in that draft, perhaps with a case also to be made for Ryan O’Reilly (No. 33, Colorado). Without O’Reilly, the Blues don’t win the Cup in 2019. Too soon?
Taveres is strong around the net, and not shy about getting there. His adherence and commitment to defensive play have been the missing elements to keep him at sub-superstar status. Bergeron, though not as offensively prolific (.804 points per game), based his game on defense and faceoff efficiency. The 1,040 points just piled up along the way.
Had Tavares brought Bergeron’s kind of glue to Toronto, and poured it into the Matthews-Marner-Nylander-Knies-Rielly mix, the Leafs today would have a far firmer, stubborn, and perhaps winning culture than when he arrived. Dubas also never found a franchise goalie nor figured out how to build a stout backline around Rielly needed to forge an effective Cup run.
For $11 million a year, the Leafs got every bit the solid, productive, predictable performer that Tavares had been on Long Island. They thought they were getting more, and thus far have paid the price for it: a lone playoff series victory and a payroll that has left new GM Brad Treliving as the guy still trying to make it all work.