Proof is in the Pudding - John Tavares

[kb]

Panarin is in the running for the Hart Trophy this season after signing that contract, which is a level Tavares and Marner have not come close to as Maple Leafs.

And his team did what again?

 

[kb]

I hope so, because he's got to do a lot to justify that sticker price.

That is ridiculous. He's done nothing to suggest he wasn't worth it. Panarin having a great season doesn't diminish what the others did.

 

[RoadWarrior]

Isles fan in peace. Nobody hates Tavares more than me, he's certainly slow but you can't question his intensity. He just has a somewhat brain dead look on his face that makes it look like he's not trying. He's a very intense player however.

His legs will never catch up to his brain. He's exploited in the playoffs at even strength by faster players.

 

[Buds17]

Here's a little John Tavares test:

Entering next season, assuming we have a normal 82 game season, 1) how confident are you in John Tavares to score around 40 goals and 85+ points 2) do you think he will outproduce Artemi Panarin or 3) are you preparing a lengthy response outlining how the above criteria is unfair?

If there is an 82 game season - and Tavares plays in every game - I'd hope for him to come in at just above or below PPG as a range. Panarin is also actually a bit more expensive against the cap, if that's being intended as a method for comparison. NYR were also slightly more top heavy when it came to distribution of points. Panarin had more points than any Leaf, but NYR had three players with 59 or more points, whereas the Leafs had four.

 

[Throw More Waffles]

If there is an 82 game season - and Tavares plays in every game - I'd hope for him to come in at just above or below PPG as a range. Panarin is also actually a bit more expensive against the cap, if that's being intended as a method for comparison. NYR were also slightly more top heavy when it came to distribution of points. Panarin had more points than any Leaf, but NYR had three players with 59 or more points, whereas the Leafs had four.

Cutting it off at 59 points seems very strange. Why 59?

I'd argue that the Rangers had SEVEN players with 40 or more points. The leafs just FOUR.

 

[Buds17]

Cutting it off at 59 points seems very strange. Why 59?

I'd argue that the Rangers had SEVEN players with 40 or more points. The leafs just FOUR.

Fair enough. I made that a cutoff point due to those four players being the highest paid Leafs (AAV). Assuming equal enough health, I'd expect Matthews to finish with more points than Tavares more often than not going forward anyway. Matthews would probably make for the better comparison to Panarin in terms of being each respective team's points leader.

 

[Nooodles]

Tavares does come in two and a half million dollars cheaper then Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak combined.
And I'm sure that'll look even better a few years from now.

I'm sure it will because Bergeron will be gone in 2-3 years.

Few months ago I asked Ferraro on twitter about Tavares and how he will age. He said he will still be an elite forward because he never relied on his speed, rather his strength, puck protection and hockey iq.

People don't realize he became a star without speed and good skating. It was never an issue for him.

 

[Duke Silver]

Tavares does come in two and a half million dollars cheaper then Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak combined.
And I'm sure that'll look even better a few years from now.

You do realize that Bergeron signed his deal 7 years ago, when the cap was much lower, right? He also wasn't putting up point-per-game seasons in the immediate run up to signing that deal.

Bergeron signed his deal one year before becoming a UFA in 2013 for 10.7% of the cap. In his previous 3 seasons, he averaged 61 points per 82 games.

Tavares signed his deal as a UFA in 2018 for 13.8% of the cap. In his previous 3 seasons, he averaged 76 points per 82 games. That's a pretty significant gap in production. Factor in their free agency status and this comparison is just senseless.

Fun fact: you know who else put up 60 points per 82 games in the 3 seasons leading up to signing a long-term extension as an RFA? William Nylander. He signed for 8.8% of the cap.

Surely at this point you must realize you're going to get fact-checked on whatever you say, right? So put some actual critical thought into it.

 

[LeafGrief]

Here's a little John Tavares test:

Entering next season, assuming we have a normal 82 game season, 1) how confident are you in John Tavares to score around 40 goals and 85+ points 2) do you think he will outproduce Artemi Panarin or 3) are you preparing a lengthy response outlining how the above criteria is unfair?

1) Quite confident
2) Maybe. Panarin exploded for a career best season, so I'd say he's likely to put up more points.
3) No. Answer #1 is good enough for me and I'm not going to compare player contracts 1 to 1 every year because that's a fool's game.

 

[Dekes For Days]

The problem with Tavares is that for the $11M you're getting a goal consistent scorer who because of his skating deficiencies and lack of intensity cannot raise the level of his game in the playoffs as evidenced with his 0.11 Pts/G drop over his career in the post season.

Crosby has a 0.16 P/GP drop over his career in the postseason. Clearly, he's somebody that can't raise the level of his game in the playoffs, right?

 

[Sparksrus3]

I'm sure it will because Bergeron will be gone in 2-3 years.

Few months ago I asked Ferraro on twitter about Tavares and how he will age. He said he will still be an elite forward because he never relied on his speed, rather his strength, puck protection and hockey iq.

People don't realize he became a star without speed and good skating. It was never an issue for him.

description reminds me of Alexi Yashin . Thoughts ?

 

[BAM]

If you found $1 million, why would you care that somebody found $1.1 million? Who cares?! You're both rich.

Tavares isn't any less of a star just because Panarin put up a good first season with the Rangers.

 

[Coachcorner]

If you found $1 million, why would you care that somebody found $1.1 million? Who cares?! You're both rich.

Tavares isn't any less of a star just because Panarin put up a good first season with the Rangers.

Yes sire. Tavares, John was one of our best forwards and players in these playoffs again. With Matthews they played aaight, cool. They gon be have to be even betta in the future, but this was ok and aaaaight. No other forwards of ours was not better than these two.

In captain john I still trust. Our other, young fools can now play with certain type of freedom, since johnny is taking the heat. Media is tough in hockey's mecca. But we be aaaight. We tight. Still twerkin hard. Gittin money. And power. Some of our dork players even use power in certain points in their life, they are not the smartest human beings of course cause they only think about ice hockey and almost nothing else. But that's aaaight too. Cool. Y'all can really see in some of the interviews that are always the same, that ice hockey player cannot be the smartest. But they good players, so that's fun. Therefore I often go and only follow the coaches. They have usually something else to say also. So that's life and fun. You gotta love it

 

[Rehabguy]

Many fans including myself told you that John Tavares is a great player but the wrong fit at the wrong time for the Maple Leafs. They are now forced to adapt a win now mentality because they squandered all their Cap space on one player producing a poorly balanced team. They had all the offense they needed what they needed was a few grinders and few steady defenseman that could have been bought with the 11 million dollar cap hit John has taken for himself. Now they have to find a way to win with a way top heavy offensive team. This sensible idea got lost when many assumed that Islander fans such as myself were just sore that JT left for the Leafs, but this move never made any sense to me for the Leafs. It was completely unnecessary and may have screwed your team over for the long run.

 

[BAM]

Many fans including myself told you that John Tavares is a great player but the wrong fit at the wrong time for the Maple Leafs. They are now forced to adapt a win now mentality because they squandered all their Cap space on one player producing a poorly balanced team. They had all the offense they needed what they needed was a few grinders and few steady defenseman that could have been bought with the 11 million dollar cap hit John has taken for himself. Now they have to find a way to win with a way top heavy offensive team. This sensible idea got lost when many assumed that Islander fans such as myself were just sore that JT left for the Leafs, but this move never made any sense to me for the Leafs. It was completely unnecessary and may have screwed your team over for the long run.

The difference is that the Leafs had to go through their extensions already. And fixing this team isn't difficult. There are players with great value than can be moved to address holes.

The Isles haven't signed Barzal yet and Isles fans have been so mad at JT that they haven't realized what Lou did to their cap space. Enjoy the ECF this year, after Barzal gets signed it's not going to be pretty there.

 

[TheScandal89]

You can't complain about signing a guy for free, even with the cap hit. Signing a top guy for free gives you a asset that makes you able to trade a good asset to fill a hole.

It was handled poorly by Dubas, as he used Kadri, on one of the best contracts the Leafs ever signed, in a horribly executed trade. At this point its almost like we gave him away for free which negates the JT signing value. A guy like Kerfoot can be signed in FA, he's nothing special. Now we must give up another asset in order to do what we should have done in the beginning.

Sounds like the Marleau deal to Carolina, where you could have traded Johnsson or Kapanen to save the 1st and gotten a asset to help instead and just let Marleau play out the 1 year on his deal. We coulda had our 1st and a extra 2nd or a solid bottom pair RD but instead we just have 1 1st

Asset management has been done horribly by Dubas and you can see in our prospect pool, that its getting barron and we are forcing guys who arent quite ready (Sandin, Robertson, Liljegren) likely into NHL roles.

 

[moon111]

Here's a little John Tavares test:

Entering next season, assuming we have a normal 82 game season, 1) how confident are you in John Tavares to score around 40 goals and 85+ points 2) do you think he will outproduce Artemi Panarin or 3) are you preparing a lengthy response outlining how the above criteria is unfair?

For anyone using regular season points, we all know Tavares can score points like JVR. They both had 30 5-on-5 points this season. JVR in the series against Washington was way more cautious about going deep then he would in the regular season. Perhaps Tavares needs to be a bit more cautious too? Maybe they can find him wingers that will balance his line a little better. Being slapped between a LW with little NHL experience and a RW who might get caught on the wrong side of the puck might not be what brings success. For me, Taveres kind of has had a career like Dale Hawerchuk. Big star, great offense, not a lot team built around him. But now the offense doesn't have to totally fall on his shoulders. Where Yzerman once might of had to force offense, with Fedorov he can focus on his two-way game.

So to answer your question, I'm not concerned at all about the criteria outlined because like Hawerchuk, it doesn't make a difference towards winning a Championship. I'm much more concerned about Tavares staying on the right side of the puck then the offensive numbers. I'll be happy seeing him a +20 in the regular season, and a plus player in the playoffs. Yzerman was a -17, -19, -22 ...and went on to win a Selke ...and a Cup at the age of 30.

 

[robertmac43]

He didn't look great this year but he was still good. Let's also not forget he is coming off of a 47 goal campaign. Not going to pile on the guy just yet.

 

[Leafsfan74]

I'm sure it will because Bergeron will be gone in 2-3 years.

Few months ago I asked Ferraro on twitter about Tavares and how he will age. He said he will still be an elite forward because he never relied on his speed, rather his strength, puck protection and hockey iq.

People don't realize he became a star without speed and good skating. It was never an issue for him.

Precisely. I'd like to see him with more wheels, but, his strength is elsewhere.

What I can imagine he becomes as he ages, and he is far from being past his prime, let's not forget he had 47 goals the season before his injury; is a player who is willing to stand in front of the net. Deflect, get garbage goals, create havok, however minor and within the rules (he's not a Sean Avery for example, thank God for that).

He reminds me of what a Andreychuk or JVR brought to the team, but with more dimensions and vision with his game. He can make plays on the rush and see how the play is going to unfold. You can't teach that into a player. Which is why he was a #1 draft pick.

If his evolution over time, is to become a player like the aforementioned, more "simple game, I am more than happy to see him become that kind of player. Other players who age simply can't or won't be that kind of player, so he can always fall back on that.

As it is, he's not even close to that point. We will get 3-4 more premium years from him as long as he is hungry enough to want to succeed.

 

[HolyCrap]

He’s not the reason we’re the laughing stock of hockey. But he has to feel dumb signing here when his team is playing great hockey deel in the playoffs. I think we’re just cursed tbh. Tavares is a causality because of it.

 

[Maplebeasts]

The ability for members of this board to engage in mental gymnastics to justify bad opinions is nothing short of amazing.

 

[stickty111]

For anyone using regular season points, we all know Tavares can score points like JVR. They both had 30 5-on-5 points this season. JVR in the series against Washington was way more cautious about going deep then he would in the regular season. Perhaps Tavares needs to be a bit more cautious too? Maybe they can find him wingers that will balance his line a little better. Being slapped between a LW with little NHL experience and a RW who might get caught on the wrong side of the puck might not be what brings success. For me, Taveres kind of has had a career like Dale Hawerchuk. Big star, great offense, not a lot team built around him. But now the offense doesn't have to totally fall on his shoulders. Where Yzerman once might of had to force offense, with Fedorov he can focus on his two-way game.

So to answer your question, I'm not concerned at all about the criteria outlined because like Hawerchuk, it doesn't make a difference towards winning a Championship. I'm much more concerned about Tavares staying on the right side of the puck then the offensive numbers. I'll be happy seeing him a +20 in the regular season, and a plus player in the playoffs. Yzerman was a -17, -19, -22 ...and went on to win a Selke ...and a Cup at the age of 30.

You know when you keep using plus minus, you know you already lost the argument? Keep making baseless statements but multiple people already proved you wrong.

 

[stickty111]

The ability for members of this board to engage in mental gymnastics to justify bad opinions is nothing short of amazing.

The OP is a perfect example of this.

 

[seanlinden]

The real problem with Tavares is at this point, the contract.

The Leafs were far too top-heavy this year. They signed these big 4 deals banking on the cap continuing to rise, with a new TV deal on the horizon, knowing that they would have the core in place, and then could add depth around them. The pandemic and flat cap for the forseeable future has basically prevented that plan from being successful. Matthews, Tavares & Marner are presently the 3rd, 4th, and 5th highest paid forwards in the league, 3rd, 5th, and 7th highest paid players.

With the flat cap, nobody is going to be at the $11m mark anymore.... meaning that those rankings are likely to remain stagnant for a while.

For Matthews & Marner, this may be "less" of a problem, as they should still be improving, and I don't think it would be unreasonable to suggest that Matthews might be the 3rd best forward in the league at some point over the life of his deal. He's probably in the top 10 right now, the youngest in the top 10, and a lot of the other guys in that conversation (Crosby, Malkin, Kane, Ovechkin) are on the wrong side of 30. Even Marner, while he may never be the 4th best, he could be a top 10 forward at some point.

For Tavares, I don't believe he's a top 10 forward right now, and I don't believe he's ever going to be over the life of his deal. As long as they keep these 3, they're likely going to fall victim to deeper teams, or even a team like Tampa who just creates a single-purpose line to shut these guys down.

And really, it's too bad. JT signed here because this is where he wants to be. He took a deal that was below market to do so; however with non-renegable contracts, I suspect that his NMC it's going to become a source of contention in the coming years unless the Leafs can hit an absolute home-run on a Marner deal and get back serval quality, high-value players for somebody who wants a superstar.

 

[hockeywiz542]

The Maple Leafs put John Tavares ahead of team-building two years ago, and they’ve been paying ever since | The Star

There’s a school of thought, after all, that all the roster shuffling and cap jockeying in the world cannot possibly compensate for the franchise’s original team-building sin. That original sin was widely seen as the return of a prodigal son. The 2018 summertime signing of John Tavares brought the Leafs a team captain, a point-a-game scorer and more even-strength goals over the past two seasons than anybody not named Alex Ovechkin, Patrick Kane, Auston Matthews and Leon Draisaitl. But while the Tavares deal was a moment out of a storybook — complete with the timeless image of a tiny Tavares tucking into his Maple Leafs sheets and dreaming of a starring role for his hometown team — it continues to put undeniable stress on their salary-cap-limited pocketbook, and not only because Tavares’s no-movement clause means he’s essentially in command of his guaranteed-salary whereabouts until 2025.

“(Tavares) was an unnecessary signing,” Craig Button, the former NHL general manager, said during a segment on TSN’s Free Agent Frenzy coverage on Friday. “It was not what the Toronto Maple Leafs needed … They’re built up the centre. They’re not built up anywhere else.”

Paying Tavares $77 million (U.S.) over seven years set the baseline for negotiations that led to Toronto’s top four players earning about half of the now-flat salary cap of $81.5 million. It led to Matthews rightly demanding to be the highest-paid player on the team at $11.6. It led to Marner demanding only slightly less at $10.9. And even if William Nylander’s $6.9 million cap hit doesn’t seem so egregious with Nylander coming off a 31-goal season, the team’s kid-gloved negotiations on that deal — which came after Tavares but before Matthews and Marner — spoke to an inability to convince players to take the hometown discounts team president Brendan Shanahan had once spoken hopefully about securing.

None of this, it ought to be pointed out, is a knock on Tavares, the player. It’s a question of Tavares, the fit. Yes, jersey-burning New York Islanders fans will point out that the Islanders have won more playoff series in the two seasons since Tavares departed (three plus a play-in round) than they won in Tavares’s nine seasons as the franchise’s cornerstone (one). And jittery Leaf fans will note that Tavares, coming off an underwhelming 26-goal season, turned 30 last month and, unless he’s subscribing to the LeBron James Cocktail of the Month Club, likely isn’t getting better from here. But this isn’t a question of the excellence of a highly-paid player so much as the requisite sacrifice of team depth that comes with acquiring him.

“It’s not about John Tavares,” Button said. “It’s about how you build your team. The bottom line is (the Tavares deal) was a signing that has hurt and hindered and handcuffed the Toronto Maple Leafs because of the salary cap.”

Indeed, every dollar counts. Even if the Leafs had landed Tavares at the number they’d originally offered — something closer to $10 million — they’d be in far better shape today. It wouldn’t have just saved them about $1 million on Tavares’s cap hit. It would have, ideally, pushed down the cap hits of Matthews and Marner. And those savings would have meant something. Heck, last off-season the Maple Leafs made what’s now seen as the mistake to swap Nazem Kadri for Alex Kerfoot in part to save a measly $1 million or so annually at the third-line centre position.

An extra few million a season might have saved the Leafs from scrimping on backup goaltending, which has put them in trouble ever since Curtis McElhinney left the building. It might have allowed them to retain one or both of Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson instead of throwing them over the side for cap purposes this off-season and putting a considerable dent in next season’s potential for depth scoring. There’s no telling the difference it might have made.