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Toronto Maple Leafs: The Most Disappointing Player This Season

By Wilbert Timmermans

TORONTO, ON - NOVEMBER 07: Morgan Rielly #44, Ilya Mikheyev #65, and Frederik Andersen #31 of the Toronto Maple Leafs skate during player introductions before playing the Vegas Golden Knights at the Scotiabank Arena on November 7, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Mark Blinch/NHLI via Getty Images)
TORONTO, ON - NOVEMBER 07: Morgan Rielly #44, Ilya Mikheyev #65, and Frederik Andersen #31 of the Toronto Maple Leafs skate during player introductions before playing the Vegas Golden Knights at the Scotiabank Arena on November 7, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Mark Blinch/NHLI via Getty Images) /
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TORONTO, ON - NOVEMBER 07: John Tavares #91 of the Toronto Maple Leafs looks on against the Vegas Golden Knights during the third period at the Scotiabank Arena on November 7, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Mark Blinch/NHLI via Getty Images)
TORONTO, ON - NOVEMBER 07: John Tavares #91 of the Toronto Maple Leafs looks on against the Vegas Golden Knights during the third period at the Scotiabank Arena on November 7, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Mark Blinch/NHLI via Getty Images) /

Peri Gallacher

The Toronto Maple Leaf player I’ve been most disappointed in so far this season is, John Tavares.

Since being named captain at the beginning of the season I was interested to see how he would lead the Toronto Maple Leafs into a successful season with new hands at the helm, because while he was obviously the most experienced of the options on the team, the Islanders weren’t necessarily good while he was captain there, they only won 45% of their total games played his last season as captain.

Obviously their losses were not entirely his fault but, as captain of the team it’s his job to drive team morale and take the fall when things are bad and work to compensate for error in other parts of the team.

Now I’ll be fair and acknowledge he was out on injury for a couple weeks, and it was obvious he was missed on the ice. But when he’s on, it’s hard to see how he drives the team at all, in fact the leafs did substantially better their first 20 games captainless last season, than they have this season with a captain.

It was painfully obvious that team morale was low playing the Penguins, going into what would be the 5th loss in a row, no duh, none the less it’s Tavares duty as a captain to get into the locker room and give them words of encouragement – its only November, things can be turned around.

I’m not blaming JT’s lack of captaincy skills as to why the Toronto Maple Leafs are flunking so hard there’s much much more to that, but the role of a captain is to keep things going in a hard time and it’s been hard to see that being done in this situation and I’d like to see him step more into the leadership he’s been given and keep the teams confidence afloat in times of trouble.

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