Toronto Maple Leafs Should Ask Tavares to Waive No-Trade Clause

If John Tavares ever wants to see the Toronto Maple Leafs win a Stanley Cup, he should waive his no-trade clause and watch from the sideline.

When John Tavares came home, it was one of the greatest moments in Toronto Maple Leafs free agency history. Year-after-year, the Leafs continue to miss out on big-name free agents, despite them having a connection to Toronto.

However, this time around,, the best player chose Toronto.

Tavares joined Toronto because he wanted to raise his family here, stay come to home, but most importantly, win. After four years, Tavares has statistically been everything the Leafs have hoped for, but at $11M per season, the team would be best suited using that money elsewhere.

The 31-year-old has never been the fastest player on the ice, but with every passing year, he’s only going to get slower and playing centre is going to catch up to him, especially defensively. Tavares will always score between 25-35 goals and will be a point per-game player, but that doesn’t always translate in winning, especially at his price-tag.

$11M is an insane amount of money to pay for Tavares, when that money could be used on a goaltender, another defenseman or a player who’s 80 percent as good as Tavares, but makes half the salary.

Toronto Maple Leafs Should Trade John Tavares

Since 2009, John Tavares has only won one playoff round. If you thought the Toronto Maple Leafs inefficiency to win a playoff round was just a Toronto issue, it’s also a Tavares problem as no matter where he plays, he’s golfing in May.

For someone who’s been a captain for essentially his entire career, maybe the inability to win is a leadership problem? Maybe he’s best suited behind the scenes and not the player who can lead his team to the promised land?

Tavares only has 18 goals and 36 points in 44 career playoff games, so it’s not like he’s putting up huge numbers and his team just can’t win. His points per game from the regular season to playoffs goes from 0.94 PPG to 0.81 PPG and he seemingly can’t produce at the level that he does in meaningless games.

I know you can make a similar argument for Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews and William Nylander, but they still have time on their side. Tavares has played for multiple organizations and has been a captain, and no matter where he’s been, he hasn’t won.

This isn’t Year 1 with Tavares, either.

We are now entering Year 5, and if the Leafs want to keep Matthews for the long-haul, it may make sense to push Tavares out the door and give Matthews the key to the city and keys to leadership.

The next step in Matthews’ career is to become the captain of this team, and although Tavares coming home was an amazing accomplishment (at the time), professional sports are a harsh business and the Leafs should ask him to waive his no-trade clause.

There will be plenty of suitors for Tavares and he still provides a lot of value. Shipping his money out the door would create a ton of cap-space and ultimately make this team better moving forward.

Tavares is no longer worth his contract, so it’s time for the Leafs to explore other options.