Last season, many Toronto Maple Leafs fans, including myself, looked at John Tavares and thought it would be a rough final year of his seven-year deal.
With plenty going right for the Toronto Maple Leafs this year, the former captain has been one of the biggest surprises.
Through 30 games played, Tavares has scored 15 goals and 13 assists for 28 points. Since a slow start to his season, he has looked sensational and has had a huge role in keeping the season afloat through the injury crisis (Stats from NHL.com).
The Leafs have been fantastic defensively this season, but offense has been hard to come by. Without Tavares stepping up, I'm not quite sure where this team would be. At the time I'm writing this, the Leafs are currently tied on points with Florida for first in the Atlantic division with a game at hand (Standings from NHL.com).
The Maple Leafs Need Tavares
In the offseason, Tavares had the captaincy taken from him and handed it off to Auston Matthews. At the time of the move, I hated it. I thought the Leafs taking the captaincy away from Tavares could only negatively affect Tavares and make the locker room dynamic awkward. It seems it has had almost a positive impact on the former captain instead.
I've already discussed the importance of the resurgence of Tavares in the short term but this could potentially be even bigger later in the season.
I think everyone knows the Leafs need another centre. Domi is just coming back from injury but struggled heavily before being placed on the injury reserve. He is a winger and shouldn't be playing in the third-line centre role that they are trying him in.
My thought process before the year was Brad Treliving needs to find a way to bring in a second-line centre to push Tavares down to the third line. While my mind hasn't completely changed, Tavares is making it more acceptable to go shopping for a third-line calibre player rather than a second-line calibre player.
I still think Treliving should be shopping for a second-line centre. The Leafs are currently tied with Seattle for 19th in the league in goals for per game, posting a measly 2.97. The injury crisis with the forwards hasn't helped that, but there are a lot of players on this forward core that aren't dangerous (Goals for stats from ESPN.com).
If you were to acquire a second-line centre you could play Tavares, who has been playing against top competition a lot this year, against weaker competition.
This renaissance from Tavares has saved the Leafs short-term, but if he keeps it up, it has also potentially taken some stress off Treliving leading up to the deadline.