Toronto Maple Leafs star John Tavares had been a renaissance this 2024-25 NHL season. After regressing to somewhat worrisome levels last season where he was producing points at a rate not seen since his rookie year, Tavares was back with a vengeance this year by producing at his usual point-per-game pace. To date, he has recorded 20 goals and 22 assists in 44 games played.
In doing so, he has helped the Toronto Maple Leafs to a strong showing during the first half of the season. Without a doubt, Tavares had been the anchor for the Maple Leafs second line and has given opponents nightmares, forming a bonafide one-two punch with Auston Matthews down the middle.
However, an unfortunate injury to Tavares that occurred recently during practice has temporarily put his revitalized campaign on hold, with his prognosis being that he will be out week-to-week.
With a key player like Tavares now gone for a significant period of time, the Maple Leafs need to do something to ensure that they could have sustained success in the meantime. As a result, let’s take a look at 3 moves that the Leafs need to make immediately in wake of his injury.
3 Moves the Toronto Maple Leafs Need to Make Immediately
The Leafs Should Increase the Ice Time for their Star Players
One way to help make up for some of the lost production is to grant more playing time to their stars. That would imply giving an uptick in ice time to the remaining members of the Leafs core four in Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander. Up until now, Leafs head coach Craig Berube has been conservative all season in keeping Matthews to just over 20 minutes a game, Marner to just over 21 minutes a game, and Nylander to just under 20 minutes a night.
So by giving the Leafs best players more ice time, the chances of them producing elite numbers to help offset what Tavares would have provided would increase drastically.
Aside from utilizing their lines more often, one creative way to increase their playing time would be to even double-shift them from time to time. In doing so, the Leafs might even discover new line combinations that surprisingly work and could potentially add it to their strategical plans going forward as a result.