How is John Tavares a minus player on the Islanders?

[zaYG]

He's been dominant and scary for maybe the last three weeks. He was awful most of the year, awful. And having Conacher on LW just made it worse.

He looks like the pre-Olympics Tavares now.

This Isles team is really good. They were average at best, even "flat" at times, and still had 45 shots, were robbed by Rask (Nelson misses empty net) and had a chance to win.

I thought BOS was really good defensively, opportunistic on offense and played a smart road game to get two big points.

Chara's not the player he was 3-4 years ago but still (arguably) the toughest defenseman to generate offense against. And I never get tired of watching Bergeron play, what an impressive hockey player. He must see the ice in slow motion, especially in the defensive zone.

Lucic forgot how he's supposed to play.

To be fair, don't let Chara's play tonight shape your judgment of his season. He has been excellent over the past month or two, or at least in my opinion. He made some horrible mistakes.

JT was in full beast mode tonight though, and that steal from Chara despite being a huge **** up on the big man was pretty intense. JT was looking like full-rev Malkin or Crosby at times, just absolutely dominating with his play. I haven't seen him play like that in a little while, but hey, it will certainly get points on the board.

 

[bottomofthefoodchain]

Not really shades of Ovechkin. Ovechkin was only a minus player once in his first 6 seasons, and only 3 times in a 10 year career. Ovechkin was a vastly superior player to Tavares his first 6 years in the league. Not that that means much. Ovechkin was arguably the best player in the world during that stretch. Only Crosby was able to make an argument against him.

It was a joke, kinda. I know Ovechkin is twice the player JT is, but there was a huge thread on Ovi last season because he had the lowest +/- on his team.

 

[boredmale]

He's been dominant and scary for maybe the last three weeks. He was awful most of the year, awful.

I would say you can pinpoint to him heating up right after the Xmas break. As for him being "awful" that is sort of overstating things, he was more extremely average since the first 8-10 games(he actually got off to a good start) of this season till the xmas break. I am not sure if this hit had anything to do with Tavares becoming average after a good start but his game seemed to go down a couple notches after Chara hit him(the hit that Chara actually injured himself). Something just seemed off for a couple months after that

 

[Bradys Boys]

But Toews said he was the two way forward

 

[Samuel Culper III]

A mix of both. He's not good defensively but he's also no awful. As an Isles fan I couldn't care less if he was minus. We're winning, so whatever is going on it seems to be working.

What do you mean? Ryan Getzlaf says he's a two-way player and I'll take the word of an NHL player over an HF poster every day. Right????

 

[Samuel Culper III]

But Toews said he was the two way forward

That was Getz

 

[seafoam]

I wish he would take notes from teammate Frans Nielsen. Good defense leads to good offense and JT just waits for the puck to go the other way with it too much. He's always working on improving his skills, but I'd like to see him improve this aspect more than any skill. Will he ever win a Selke? No, but if he could just change his approach in the D zone, I think we'd see it pay dividends.

 

[dingbathero]

I think it's b/c Tavares > Giroux ainec

 

[Fire Sweeney]

Do you think Boychuk is bad defensively or something?

He's nothing special, like all of your defensemen.

 

[Fire Sweeney]

Don't quite understand those 3 guys being put together.

Boychuk has been on the ice for 31 goals for and just 10 against.

3 goals against just last night. Looks like the Bruins know his weakenesses.

 

[Nolanitis]

3 goals against just last night. Looks like the Bruins know his weakenesses.

Yeah they know his weakness. Shoot high when Halak is off his game!

 

[Axel]

I wonder why all the Flyer fans are going into depth explaining how they think Tavares is terrible defensively? lol...Oh wait, because Giroux is the best player in the league and they must bash Tavares at every turn to try and prove their point...