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Proof is in the Pudding - John Tavares

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Bozak has almost 3 times the GP yet less than double the ES time. There's a reason no coach leans on him at ES.
 
LeafsNation75 said:
When you look at Tavares from a stats point of view yes his second season in Toronto wasn't as good compared to his first season.

However in the 2018-19 season when he had 47 goals, 41 assists, and 88 points that was in 82 games played.

In the 2019-20 season he was unlucky since he suffered that broken finger and missed 7 games.

So let's see what his third season in Toronto will look like.
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His statistics weren’t horrible. He was almost PPG but his shift to shift did not look good on a regular basis. Especially in open ice on the transition.
 
I've got no problem with JT's game other than the fact he skates like he's wearing steel toe boots. He'll always have the hands/shot, he's just gonna slow down further in the coming years and it scares the hell out of me.

Outside of his game, his demeanor is not what I'd want in a captain. He's just a quiet, aloof guy that could probably inspire you to make your bed or make some nice smoothies, but to go into battle? I doubt it bros.
 
Tairy Greene said:
Great player, probably the #1 C on 75% of the teams in the NHL
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Besides Toronto who ended up signing Tavares, let's remember he also meet with San Jose, Tampa Bay, Boston, Dallas, and the Islanders.

San Jose was also willing to give Tavares 7 years and $13 million AAV. However he signed in Toronto for 7 years and $11 million AAV.

How the Toronto Maple Leafs signed John Tavares - Sportsnet.ca

Wilson wouldn’t discuss San Jose’s pitch, but word is he told Tavares, “You are the final piece for us.” It has also been rumoured (but never confirmed) that the Sharks were willing to pay $13.5 million per year for seven years. “That was a confident group,” one source says. “They felt they were the best option for John, and they showed it.”

Tavares knew the Sharks were in huge. He had another massive deal from the Islanders, if he wanted it. He recognized he was getting less in Toronto, but understood that. The question was: What’s the acceptable number?

It’s believed the Maple Leafs were initially thinking between $10 and $10.5 million per year. They wanted him bad, but were mindful of the cap. “Saturday was when we took the plunge, knowing we had a real chance at this,” Dubas recalled last week. “But you are trying to be respectful of the rules. And this has to work. We couldn’t come over the top with an outlandish offer. John himself said we could not lead to subtraction. That was the major point he and I discussed.”

At approximately 9:00 p.m. Eastern time on Sat., June 30, Tavares called Dubas. “I told him I wanted to come,” Tavares says. “‘Let’s get it done.’”
The Maple Leafs committed to $11 million. It was over.
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John Tavares, Sharks face off with no regrets over how free agency unfolded - Sportsnet.ca

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Sharks rolled out their finest teal carpet while pursuing John Tavares in free agency last summer.

They showed up to their face-to-face meeting with a contingent that included Hasso Plattner — the seldom-seen team owner and founder of tech giant SAP — and discussed not only the merits of a first-class organization, but also some of the off-ice business opportunities that would be available to him while living in Silicon Valley.

They were even willing to go as high as $91-million to sign No. 91, which is $2-million more per season on a seven-year deal than he ended up getting from the Toronto Maple Leafs.
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moon111 said:
History. John Tavares is drafted 1st overall in 2009 by the New York Islanders. Immediately he leads the team in scoring. It's his job. Someone has to. It's what his team needs. Now one of the problems with this situation, Tavares is constantly pushing the offense. If he doesn't, you're keeping your fingers crossed with the rest of the roster that you don't get shut-out. Much like Reilly, the offense in their careers has taken precedence over playing two-way hockey.

The Pudding. John Tavares is a decent offensive player, but he's not outscoring the opposition. And the playoffs, it only gets worst. In the last two seasons, which winds up being only 12 playoff games, he has managed to be tied for 45th overall in the league for even-strength goals against. Bozak who's been played almost three times as many playoff games in that time has only been on for two more then Tavares. Joe Thornton in the same time frame was on the ice for the same amount of goals against, but managed to also be one for 50% more goals for. The goalies are consistently doing worst with Tavares on the ice with 90.8-90.9 save percentages.

Leadership. Did you know the Leafs signed a captain? Got use to there not being one for so long, it made me forget we are suppose to have some leadership on this team now. As a leader, he wouldn't even look at the camera during the End Of Season interview where he spewed a bunch of 'Umms' until the question popped up should the Leafs make changes on the roster. Kind of quick to answer that one. Really think John Tavares should be looking at himself first. The money is on the table, now deliver without excuses.

What to do? It's obvious that John Tavares is a player like Jake Gardiner that teams can focus on to score more then he can. Unlike Gardiner, we're stuck with Tavares and his NTC. The Leafs can ill-afford to play Tavares with a huge puck-handler that despite their best efforts, can be prone to turn the puck over. Move Nylander to the 3rd line, put Hyman on his RW or something. He needs solid defensive wingers to baby-sit his game. Offense suffers, so be it. The game is to score more then the opposition, not just score more.
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:laugh:

I mean their first names both start with J. Something something pudding.
 
Budz said:
I love John. I love that he loves the Leafs.
I think history will show it was a bad signing though.

I think we would have been better off:
Mathews/Kadri at centre.
Lesser $ contracts to the other big 3.
Matthews named captain.
Significantly more cap and Dubas has shown he can deal.
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Yup. Obviously you never know if you'll land a big FA, but Kadri as the second line center and 11M spent on NHL quality defense men would have been nice.
 
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Lightsol said:
Leaf fans: "The grass is ALWAYS greener on the other side!"
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Wafflewhipper said:
73 goals and 148 points in 145 games since coming in regular season. This place is f****** nuts sometimes. What a headshaker anything negative is about him.
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To me, Tavares comes across like a Pat LaFontaine, Mats Sundin, etc. They just didn't take that step like Yzerman did.

So far, he leads the team with the worst +/- for the last two playoffs. Jake Gardiner gets royally ripped for his defensive game in the playoffs. In 26 games, Jake was a -9. In less then half of that, Tavares has already climbed to -8. To keep doing the same thing is ludicrous. Tavares needs to score, lead, and defend or be surrounded by different players who can. Anything else will be another playoff failure.

But if offense is the only focus, lets see how he's been scoring. Looking at the totals for the last two playoffs for the Leafs, despite Kadri being suspended after two games, he still has half the 5-on-5 points as Tavares. Tavares has one more 5-on-5 point then Kapanen in that same time period.

UFA or no UFA signing, $11 million is a dominate salary for a player who's not dominating.
 
I love Tavares. He isn't the problem. And I'd trade greedy Marner over him any day. But, if we had passed on Tavares, we'd likely be a top 3 team today.

Not signing Tavares means we could have signed the other big 3 to cheaper deals. We could have saved 1.5 - 2 mil with Marner, 1 - 1.5 mil with Matthews, and 0.5 - 1 mil with Nylander. That's between 3 and 4.5 mil in savings. That money would have been enough to keep Kadri in the 2C role, who is on an absolute tear and has been the MVP for Colorado these playoffs. A heart and soul player this team desperately needs.

With the remaining 11mil "JT" money, we could have signed a nearly elite 3C and an excellent 4C. Or a pair of nasty and offensively talented wingers. We could have had 4 dangerous lines. We also could have improved our backend to a respectable level.

As much as I love JT, and as great as he has been and still is for us, he is where the stack of cards started crumbling. He is a great leader, but he isn't the leader this team needed. It makes me sad to say this because at the same time, I think he's a great player who genuinely loves the Leafs.
 
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downer ending said:
I really wish people would stop pretending like JT wasn't our 2nd best player in the CBJ series.

STOP creating a problem where there isn't. You want to blame a bad contract bring up Marner's.
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Yzerman never took that step until the second half of his career. In fact they had a trade lined up for him for Yashin that was scuttled at the last minute. They were trading him because the belief was he was a guy you couldn't win with.

Edit - that was supposed to quote moon111. Sorry. Will fix.
 
Fun fact: the expression, "the proof is in the pudding" is gibberish and a corrupted form of the original expression, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating".

Another fun fact: this analysis of Tavares made my eyes bleed. Actually not a fun fact, plz send help.
 
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downer ending said:
I really wish people would stop pretending like JT wasn't our 2nd best player in the CBJ series.

STOP creating a problem where there isn't. You want to blame a bad contract bring up Marner's.
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For real. No doubt about it, JT wasn't dominant in the regular season. There are long threads about his struggles. But he was an absolute monster these playoffs. Korpisalo robbed him of four or five AAA scoring chances. No complaints about his play. Maybe we can criticize his leadership, but at least he was leading from the front.
 
downer ending said:
I really wish people would stop pretending like JT wasn't our 2nd best player in the CBJ series.

STOP creating a problem where there isn't. You want to blame a bad contract bring up Marner's.
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Columbus forced the Leafs to the outside where they had to win battles against the Jacket's huge defensemen. Seemed like Matthews and Tavares were our only guys capable of winning those battles and making something happen.
 
cesareborgia said:
I love Tavares. He isn't the problem. And I'd trade greedy Marner over him any day. But, if we had passed on Tavares, we'd likely be a top 3 team today.

Not signing Tavares means we could have signed the other big 3 to cheaper deals. We could have saved 1.5 - 2 mil with Marner, 1 - 1.5 mil with Matthews, and 0.5 - 1 mil with Nylander. That's between 3 and 4.5 mil in savings. That money would have been enough to keep Kadri in the 2C role, who is on an absolute tear and has been the MVP for Colorado these playoffs. A heart and soul player this team desperately needs.

With the remaining 11mil "JT" money, we could have signed a nearly elite 3C and an excellent 4C. Or a pair of nasty and offensively talented wingers. We could have had 4 dangerous lines. We also could have improved our backend to a respectable level.

As much as I love JT, and as great as he has been and still is for us, he is where the stack of cards started crumbling. He is a great leader, but he isn't the leader this team needed. It makes me sad to say this because at the same time, I think he's a great player who genuinely loves the Leafs.
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I think signing Tavares escalated the costs of Matthews and Marner. I often though that in the past. I never posted that. Definitely not disagreeing. He’s been good averaging 37 goals per year and point per game.
All four have produced. Getting through a darn first playoff round is making this look bad. Top six scoring and bottom six defending/shutdown energy lines that are hard on pucks is likely what we need. Johnsson,Kappy and Kerfoot are about $5,000,000 to much in that 3rd line. It takes away and doesn’t add much to team balance
 
The only real complaint one could have with JT is that he can't validate $11 mil salary as he isn't one of the top 5 players in the game and never will be so his cap hit >>> his contribution.

His signing cost the Leafs their 1st round pick 13th overall as it triggered the need to free cap space for others, but trading Kapanen has returned that pick for now anyways.

His contract acted as a magnet that drew other players up to his so now we have 3 X $11 mil players as a result as JT contract off the ice and his impact on inflating Marner's stats resulted in a vast overpayment for Mitch where he should have been an $8-$8.5 mil player and not $11 mil.

If Matthews was at $11.5 mil X 8 and JT was $9.5 mil X 7 and Marner was at $8.5 mil X 8 the Leafs wouldn't find themselves in Cap Hell and now struggling to qualify for the playoffs. IMO
 
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Even with all the injuries, I would take Stamkos 100 times out of 100. What a difference he would make on our PP.
 
socko said:
Even with all the injuries, I would take Stamkos 100 times out of 100. What a difference he would make on our PP.
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And just look at how well Tampa Bay is doing without Stamkos. If Tavares is ever injured for a series, does anyone honestly believe that the Leafs beat anyone in a round during the playoffs?

This is exactly why you don't lock up 3 players to $11M. Your depth tanks, and if any of those guys go down, your season is basically done.
 
moon111 said:
To me, Tavares comes across like a Pat LaFontaine, Mats Sundin, etc. They just didn't take that step like Yzerman did.

So far, he leads the team with the worst +/- for the last two playoffs. Jake Gardiner gets royally ripped for his defensive game in the playoffs. In 26 games, Jake was a -9. In less then half of that, Tavares has already climbed to -8. To keep doing the same thing is ludicrous. Tavares needs to score, lead, and defend or be surrounded by different players who can. Anything else will be another playoff failure.

But if offense is the only focus, lets see how he's been scoring. Looking at the totals for the last two playoffs for the Leafs, despite Kadri being suspended after two games, he still has half the 5-on-5 points as Tavares. Tavares has one more 5-on-5 point then Kapanen in that same time period.

UFA or no UFA signing, $11 million is a dominate salary for a player who's not dominating.
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Yet you made all the excuses for one way player Bozak?
It's cool you feel that way about Tavares, too bad it's not reality though.
Tavares has been fantastic.
The fact you said Sundin didn't step up either tells me how flawed your opinion is. It's not like Sundin leads the franchise in game winners or anything.
 
Doesn't matter how you tell teh story the fact of the matter is:

2 years of JT contract are done' with 5 more to go. I expect JT to not accomplish much in the last 3 yrs of his contract.

So 2 yrs of JT is ruined by abysmal management of the roster with AHL level D-men playing, hoping Freddy to play like prime hasek and expecting miracles on ice.

When babcock had said there will be pain; I did not expect this!

This is self inflicted pain
 
Tavares left the islanders when they had an 80 point season.

The leafs had just finished with 105.

The next season, the islanders, without tavares, jumped to 103 points.

The leafs, with tavares, fell to 100.

The islanders even won a playoff series while we lost in the 1st round again.

Then 2019-20, the islanders once again have the better regular season and are a single win away from the conference finals while we lost in the qualifiers.

I do wonder if JT regrets coming here. Seeing your old team outperform your new one must be tough.
 
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