The Toronto Maple Leafs currently have two of the biggest pending unrestricted free agents playing out the final years of their contracts in 2024-25 in Mitch Marner and John Tavares.
Contract talks for the two Toronto Maple Leafs have been relatively quiet compared to previous seasons with other players, but recently one of the best NHL insiders Chris Johnston revealed that the organization and Tavares' side were continuing negotiations.
Former general manager Kyle Dubas was able to lure the former first overall pick away from the New York Islanders in the summer of 2018 when Tavares signed with his hometown team on what was the biggest free agent contract at the time which was a seven-year deal that carried a salary cap hit of $77-million.
Tavares would respond in his first year with a career high 47-goals and 88-points while playing with Mitch Marner who was then playing in a contract year. Unfortunately, for the next five years Tavares who was handed the captaincy after the first season was a shadow of the player in his first year failing to record a point per game season again.
Toronto Maple Leafs Rumours: John Tavares contract talks ongoing
This past season, the former Oshawa General turned over the captaincy to Auston Matthews and started winning over fans again with arguably the best hockey of his career that has saw him record 20-points in 21 games. The biggest factor besides his goal scoring has been his physical play where in previous seasons he was quick to skate away from confrontations, however this year he appears to have more of a dog in the fight mentality that his critics had been wanting.
Johnston revealed that comparable contracts being discussed were that of Claude Giroux who signed a three-year, $6.5M deal and Anze Kopitar who is in the first year of a two-year $7M deal, while the Maple Leafs are pushing for Patrice Bergeron's one-year $5M deal he signed in his last season.
All three produced similar offensive numbers, while Kopitar and Bergeron are the elite of defensive players. The Giroux and Tavares comparison are more on the level with each other as they have had similar career paths when it comes to style of play, playoff experience and point totals.
Moving into next season, Tavares at best is the Maple Leafs fifth best forward and could find himself even further down that depth chart depending on the combination of other prospects progressing and his obvious regression.
The complication for the Maple Leafs is do they really want to commit to Tavares before they have playoff success? If the Leafs lose again early in the playoffs, they will be forced into major changes, and if they've already re-signed Tavares at that point, they would then have to look at bigger and potentially more disastrous moves.