How would you grade John Tavares 7-year Contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs?

[WarriorofTime]

John Tavares signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs on July 1, 2018 to a 7 year/$77 million contract ($11 million AAV). As of today, that contract has played out entirely with Tavares playing all 7 seasons with the Leafs.

What are your thoughts on how it turned out?

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

He returned good value on the deal in a vacuum, but the COVID cap freeze and overall team build hamstrung the Leafs.

B+. Probably a top 80% UFA contract easily if you look at historical ufa deals.

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

F, It was a complete and utter failure

The team never made it past 2nd round in his 7 seasons and it could be argued his contract turned out to be burden as Leafs handcuffed themselves cap wise unable to add key piece on D for years

Also the hype around his signing from media and comps to signing like Hossa to Chicago, etc turned out to be bad takes as well



Tavares 7 years in Toronto = 2 playoff series wins
Isles without Tavares = 6 playoff series wins and back to back trips to conference finals

 

[895]

Stats wise he did okay.

I think maybe it made guys like Matthews and Marner want more though. But how is that Tavares fault? It’s on the GM and Shanahan.

I’m not going to evaluate the contract on the general leafs playoff underperformance.

C

 

[Empoleon8771]

Feels like a D. He had decent stats individually, but I think he was still overpaid for a majority of his deal. Considering the deal ran from 2018-2025, I think they should have gotten better production for $11 million a year.

Now add on the Leafs failures as a team and I think it pushes it down to D.

 

[GlitchMarner]

I'd say a C.

When he was an Islander, he was considered one of the premiere centres in the League. I'm sure TOR expected him to be closer to a Fedorov or a Malkin than he was.

That first year was very good. After that, he seemed to slow down physically and wasn't great in transition or at driving offense. By the end of last year, I thought he was kind of cooked as a good top six player at ES, but he had a surprisingly productive 2024-2025 season (almost a PPG and he had only 20 PPP).

 

[kerrabria]

You guys are nuts. His market value at the time was over $13m AAV. That's what both San Jose and the Islanders offered him.

He was a Top 10 center in the league for the first four years of the deal and then a Top 10-15 center for the second half. He didn't elevate his game in the playoffs, but he was still a very effective and visible player most series--unlike Marner and Matthews.

RE: team failures--he has played for teams with very weak defenses, bad goaltending, thin scoring depth, and poor coaching. JT was also the number four offensive option the past several years. He hasn't been the problem. Maybe you can criticize his lack of leadership, but he seemed to do what he was supposed to do, and it's not like Keefe, Dubas, Shanahan, Matthews, Marner, or Reilly have vindicated themselves.

 

[kerrabria]

Tavares didn't elevate his game in the playoffs, but his impact didn't fall off a cliff like Matthews or Marner. And unlike Matthews, Marner, and Nylander, Tavares took a very team-friendly deal.

I think that's worth mentioning before he's pilloried.

 

[The Devilish Buffoon]

Tavares is a great player. He ranged from 1st liner to legit star player in his time in Toronto.

But he was the wrong fit for this Leafs team in almost every way - starting with the impact his deal had on the Leafs internal salary structure.

Great player, bad fit, bad result.

 

[Dirty Dog]

relatively speaking, leafs got better value out of him than most big free agent signings. He was a good player, decent value, but no team success to match the hype. I’d grade it a B signing

 

[Sergei Shirokov]

B+ he was productive the entirety of the contract which is always the worry with these deals. He scored 50, delivered value.

The downside is how it might have handcuffed their team building, and the lack of playoff success as a group. But in a vacuum I think it turned out quite well.

 

[kerrabria]

Tavares is a great player. He ranged from 1st liner to legit star player in his time in Toronto.

But he was the wrong fit for this Leafs team in almost every way - starting with the impact his deal had on the Leafs internal salary structure.

Great player, bad fit, bad result.

Disagree. The most reliable way to build a Cup winner is by being great at the center position. Tavares was an excellent goal scorer, playmaker, and 200 ft player at below market value. He signed that contract before the Marner, Matthews, and Nylander extensions. If anything, it reflects really poorly on those three that they ignored Tavares' (and Spezza's) example and bent TOR over the barrel in contract negotiations.

 

[The Devilish Buffoon]

Disagree. The most reliable way to build a Cup winner is by being great at the center position. Tavares was an excellent goal scorer, playmaker, and 200 ft player at below market value. He signed that contract before the Marner, Matthews, and Nylander extensions. If anything, it reflects really poorly on those three that they ignored Tavares' (and Spezza's) example and bent TOR over the barrel in contract negotiations.

I don't blame Tavares for how things shook out, but I do blame the Tavares deal. Maybe with different personalities in the room, things go differently.... but the guys are who they are. In my eyes, the signing created incredible pressure and hype, neither of which the core and/or coaches and/or management were equipped to deal with.

 

[IsThatSemin]

31 points in 51 playoff games. I think you want more but that’s not awful considering overall team performance. Reg season PPG guy. I voted C plus but I’m probably closer to B now that I consider it more.

 

[Thrasymachus]

I would say C-

Tavares is a very talented player, played well for them for seven years, and despite sentiment NOW, the Leafs actually got him for less than he was commanding elsewhere (as pointed out SJ and Isles were rumored to be offering more $).

Main problems are 1) did the leafs really NEED another star forward? and 2) they didn't win anything with him, or advance very far

 

[StreetHawk]

Expected more. But really, leafs hit hard by the Covid flat cap as they paid top of the market prices for their players.

Tavares probably grades out to anywhere from a B to C+ for his own performance.

From the team POV he wasn’t what they needed.

 

[GlitchMarner]

Tavares is a great player. He ranged from 1st liner to legit star player in his time in Toronto.

But he was the wrong fit for this Leafs team in almost every way - starting with the impact his deal had on the Leafs internal salary structure.

Great player, bad fit, bad result.

He's never had the best chemistry with Nylander. They can be good together in the attacking zone, but they play totally different games and Tavares isn't the best transition player (meaning Nylander has to cheat quite a bit to get his rush chances when he's playing with him).

In the earlier days, he had decent chemistry with Mitch, but then they started stapling that guy to Matthews constantly.

 

[M88K]

It's in the B's. (B- or B imo but could see B+)
Anytime you can get that quality of player for free, you try to do it. Nobody could have predicted the cap freeze, which caused them some issues.
That said even without the cap freeze he wasn't what they needed

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

I gave it a 'C'.

Him getting hurt in the playoffs back in 2021 messed things up.

 

[NVious]

F.

Zero big moments.
Zero accomplishments.
Star studded team that failed over and over, he was a huge part of that failure.
All for the low low cost of 11 million.

Max Domi has 10 goals and 33 points in his last 53 playoff games, Tavares has 17 goals and 31 points in his last 51 playoff games.

Max Pacioretty was better than him and he was a PTO. He had 2 goals and 2 assists in 7 games vs Florida, John has 3 goals and 0 assists in his last 12 games vs Florida

All things considered:
His talent level
His pedigree
His contract
His results
His teams results
His teams talent level

F, he failed totally and utterly, everything else is sugar coating it, oh and the Isles went further than the Leafs without JT, really says it all. A team without even an iota of the same resources, without as much talent going further than Captain Pyjamas.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Disagree. The most reliable way to build a Cup winner is by being great at the center position. Tavares was an excellent goal scorer, playmaker, and 200 ft player at below market value. He signed that contract before the Marner, Matthews, and Nylander extensions. If anything, it reflects really poorly on those three that they ignored Tavares' (and Spezza's) example and bent TOR over the barrel in contract negotiations.

Disagree that he was below market value. He was 24th in aggregate points during his contract and as late as the last season of his deal carried the 10th largest cap hit in the NHL. I think we're defining market value differently, as you might be saying what he may have gotten extracting every last dollar at the time of signing based on his relative age/standing at the time he became a UFA, and I'm comparing a player's value to their cap standing. I don't think there was a single point in his contract that he was providing excess value compared to what he signed for. For comparison, Alex Ovechkin had 8 more points and scored 68 more goals in fewer games while carrying two different contracts that each paid him $9.5 million, or to be precise $9,538,462 and $9,500,000 (which is $1.5 million less than Tavares). And then as you said, he's not exactly improving on his league wide standing with postseason results.

 

[Kevin27nyi]

Stats were good.

But he wasn’t what they needed, they got rid of Karri for him and then he inflated the leaf RFAs salaries compared to his salary and that also ruined them.

Also no real team success

 

[NVious]

Stats were good.

But he wasn’t what they needed, they got rid of Karri for him and then he inflated the leaf RFAs salaries compared to his salary and that also ruined them.

Also no real team success

*Season stats

Since coming to the Leafs he ranks 155th in playoff goals per game and 280th all time in points per game (with the production he had for Toronto).

Absolutely beyond abysmal for being one of the highest paid athletes in NHL history.

His point production puts him near such names like Mike Ricci, Shayne Corson, Dan Boyle.

His goal production puts him near such names like Dan Quinn, Ondrej Palat, Sam Bennet.

I'm starting to think my F rating was too nice.

 

[JaegerDice]

C+

His performance was good value for the contract value.

However, the Leafs did not need another elite offensive threat. The money could have been spent better elsewhere.

Basically, Tavares did his job, but it wasn't a job that needed to be done on the Leafs.

 

[Cats2TheCup]

Was the catalyst behind all the stupid contracts aka the nail in the coffin. F.