John Tavares Discussion

[Stephen]

Yep. Joe Sakic and Steve Yzerman should be on Dubas' No Reply List.

I know a lot of members looked at the suspensions as something indicative of deficiency on Kadri's part. It was always curious how small his supporters were in the face of like behavior by Boston and overlooked by the refs (league).

Don't mind Kerfoot at all and no one could have seen Kadri leading the Avs (Damn!) in points. But the caphit, the grit, the overt love of the team...

Yep. Would rather have Kadri...and had an appropriate address on defense.

I think the equation is slightly more complicated. It was Kadri for Barrie retained and Kerfoot and then Barrie was replaced with Brodie. The cap dollars don’t equate one to one, but there’s a bit of a Throughline there especially with the Leafs having tried to trade Kadri for Brodie as option 1. Also, Kadri has been hot at different points in time, like 2020 playoffs and all of 2022, but it’s not like he’s been a top 5 player in the game the past 3 seasons.

That said, knowing what we know now, I’d prefer to have lost the Tavares sweepstakes back in 2018 and avoided this whole homecoming storyline and build internally. Franchise hasn’t progressed with him and we lost a lot of pieces to make life work with him. It is what it is but with hindsight and a time machine, no thanks.

 

[keonsbitterness]

I heard through the grapevine that Barb and Joe Tavares filed a missing persons report with the police for their son.

His name is John in case anyone has seen him?

Too soon.

 

[ShaneFalco]

JT will come around - he's the least of my worries.
Keefe should be a bigger worry at this point as he doesn't seem to know how to adapt when things go poorly

 

[hotpaws]

JT will come around - he's the least of my worries.
Keefe should be a bigger worry at this point as he doesn't seem to know hot to adapt when things go poorly

Keefe is like a bantam AAA coach , just keeps throwing out his small handful of top players and if that isn't working then he has no backup plan .

JT will get his points vulturing around the net but but he keeps getting slower and slower which kills his impact in every other area of the ice .

 

[JT AM da real deal]

Keefe is like a bantam AAA coach , just keeps throwing out his small handful of top players and if that isn't working then he has no backup plan .

JT will get his points vulturing around the net but but he keeps getting slower and slower which kills his impact in every other area of the ice .

With respect most hockey guys try to throw out their best guys for as much of da game as they can .. but your point on JT is very true .. but it was calculated at time of signing and JT himself knows he will go to LW at some point as it was discussed .. Shanny wanted JT bottom line and it was in da cards, through families, for a long long time .. Dubie had little say in da decision to be fair to him

 

[ShaneFalco]

Keefe is like a bantam AAA coach , just keeps throwing out his small handful of top players and if that isn't working then he has no backup plan .

It's like the Babcock opposite. Babs wouldn't stack his lines and had really no answers when his schemes didn't work. Other than stacking the first line, Keefe has nothing as was plain to see against the Habs

 

[m1ker]

Mkh-Tavares-kase
Engvall-Kerfoot-Nylander
Spezza-Kampf-Simmonds

i don't think its rocket science. Just try and get nylander or taveres going and then re-unite

 

[Koolboss]

Wonder which teams PJs is going to sleep with now a days ?

 

[hotpaws]

With respect most hockey guys try to throw out their best guys for as much of da game as they can .. but your point on JT is very true .. but it was calculated at time of signing and JT himself knows he will go to LW at some point as it was discussed .. Shanny wanted JT bottom line and it was in da cards, through families, for a long long time .. Dubie had little say in da decision to be fair to him

yup to a point they do but that's all he does and it eventually leads to diminishing returns

your giving our mgmt too much credit , they thought they were getting some elite superstar when they signed JT and he'd age well instead of a guy that just shows up on the stat sheets and can't drive a line

 

[hotpaws]

It's like the Babcock opposite. Babs wouldn't stack his lines and had really no answers when his schemes didn't work. Other than stacking the first line, Keefe has nothing as was plain to see against the Habs

Babs thought he was stacking his lines by giving Hyman 20 pus mins , lol

 

[GreatSaveEssensa]

I think Johnny would have a good time in the desert , the dry heat is good on his old bones and they’d love how his deal is structured .

You really think JT is waiving his NTC for Arizona?

 

[hotpaws]

You really think JT is waiving his NTC for Arizona?

nope , i believe JT delusionally believes he's a top 5 player in the the game and that's because he's been catered to his entire life and never had his poor play or his deficiencies held accountable

but i do believe the team can get him to give a list of team(s) he'd waive too , players don't usually want to stay when there no longer wanted

 

[DueDiligence]

JT will come around - he's the least of my worries.
Keefe should be a bigger worry at this point as he doesn't seem to know how to adapt when things go poorly

JT was not brought to the Leafs to be a "good" player with some consistency issues. As Captain and at $11 million per year he was to be a 1B to Matthews' 1A and be that guy virtually every night. Right now he's not that. And before you say it doesn't matter it does because replacing JT with a $5 million guy would allow the Leafs to swap Holl for an $8 million a year top pairing Dman. And I think the Leafs would be better off.

 

[ShaneFalco]

JT was not brought to the Leafs to be a "good" player with some consistency issues. As Captain and at $11 million per year he was to be a 1B to Matthews' 1A and be that guy virtually every night. Right now he's not that. And before you say it doesn't matter it does because replacing JT with a $5 million guy would allow the Leafs to swap Holl for an $8 million a year top pairing Dman. And I think the Leafs would be better off.

I agree. I'm not sure Keefe is doing him any favours right now however

 

[ToneDog]

JT was not brought to the Leafs to be a "good" player with some consistency issues. As Captain and at $11 million per year he was to be a 1B to Matthews' 1A and be that guy virtually every night. Right now he's not that. And before you say it doesn't matter it does because replacing JT with a $5 million guy would allow the Leafs to swap Holl for an $8 million a year top pairing Dman. And I think the Leafs would be better off.

So who's taking JT and his full $11m cap hit ??

 

[Fogelhund]

nope , i believe JT delusionally believes he's a top 5 player in the the game and that's because he's been catered to his entire life and never had his poor play or his deficiencies held accountable

but i do believe the team can get him to give a list of team(s) he'd waive too , players don't want usually want to stay when there no longer wanted

Zero chance.

 

[ToneDog]

I agree. I'm not sure Keefe is doing him any favours right now however

JT had 70% offensive zone starts last night. Keefe is trying to get him going. He just seems lethargic lately. I'd sit him out of a couple of "easy" games, if there is such a thing today.

 

[zeke]

Tavares is around 15th amongst Cs in scoring this year and over his first four years as a leaf. This with a healthy xgf% too. And he does this without true top line minutes.

he's pretty good.

 

[ER89]

I don't get people saying Taveras is not too big a concern. You got 11m dollars wasted. That's a huge f***ing concern especially when this dude looks slower than Spezza. Jesus.

 

[ShaneFalco]

I don't get people saying Taveras is not too big a concern. You got 11m dollars wasted. That's a huge f***ing concern especially when this dude looks slower than Spezza. Jesus.

Some are willing to wait and give him the benefit of the doubt. If his play continues, yeah it's a big problem
Wasn't long ago 16 looked lost
And Willy hasn't exactly been tearing it up lately.

 

[hotpaws]

I don't get people saying Taveras is not too big a concern. You got 11m dollars wasted. That's a huge f***ing concern especially when this dude looks slower than Spezza. Jesus.

most know his poor play is a huge concern but they believe the team can't move him so it's easier to pretend he isn't an issue than to worry about his wasted cap space

 

[zeke]

we're at the point where having an average #1C as our 2C has apparently become a fatal weakness.

 

[hotpaws]

Zero chance.

contrary to popular opinion the world doesn revolve around Johnny and if we get knocked out early again it'll be easy for Dubas or his successor to realize the best most effective way to re-tool this team is to somehow trade JT

 

[hotpaws]

we're at the point where having an average #1C as our 2C has apparently become a fatal weakness.

we're at the point where we need to have deep playoff runs and if we don't changes need to be made

 

[keonsbitterness]

contrary to popular opinion the world don't revolve around Johnny and if we get knocked out early again it'll be easy for Dubas or his successor to realize the beast most effective way to re-tool this team is to somehow trade JT

That's kind of the hard part of the exercise.

Makes a lot of sense if he waives. The part that doesn't make sense is him waiving.