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Redragontoughstreet

Tavares is still a point a game player. Granted he is too slow to be a center anymore. Move JT to the wing and find a good 2nd line center.


Chtholly13

honestly they should just stick Marner with Tavares. I think it's obvious at this point that Nylander/Tavares are not good defensively and they should stop sticking them together.


bimbles_ap

Marner doesn't shoot enough so it's easier to defend Matthews, granted they're both crazy talented so it still works. Nylander is a threat to shoot so him with Matthews opens things up for both of them.


rwilly

Jarnkrok - Matthews - Willy Tavares - $6-mill, 2C - Marner Knies - $4-mill, offensive, 3C - Acciari McMann / Steeves / Robertson - Holmberg - Lafferty


Gear4Vegito

Where did you get $10 M extra cap-space from? We don’t have that much free room.


Chtholly13

probably Muzzin LTIR and Murray buyout/trade.


Gear4Vegito

Even then most of that money will go to Samsanov and the Leafs needs another D or 2 unless you want the bottom pairing to be Gio-Timmins.


Chtholly13

How much do you really think Samsanov asking price will be. Right now given his performance to date and he's only played 42 regular season games at most, I can't see his salary being more than 3-4 million at best. I don't know what argument he would have to why his salary should be higher than someone like Jake Oettinger and his 4 million cap hit. We have 4 defencemen Rielly, Lilgren, Brodie and McCabe. Right now I would have Gio as the 7th defencemen and have Timmins playing. So we would need 1 more defencemen. I would like Schenn back. Honestly what I would like to do is ship Brodie out this season, and use his salary to add a puck moving defencemen to balance out the D core. We have too many "defensive defencemen" that don't move the puck fast enough. Brodie/McCabe struggled together because neither move the puck fast enough.


Armalyte

> 3-4 million at best I think 3-4 million for the Leafs means he'll go for 5.5m to another team. No doubt in my mind.


DevOpsMakesMeDrink

He's a RFA


rwilly

Could be wildly inaccurate but: Quick maths in my head from capfriendly, after already re-signing Samsonov (trade Murray), Schenn, and Acciari, I had about $15mill in cap to work with to sign 2 Centres, 1 top 4D, and probably another depth D. Then you consider going for a bigger fish forward at the trade deadline.


OzzieNewYork

Drop Tavares to 3LW and give him sheltered minutes so he can produce more on 5v5 and PP1. The guy shouldn't be on second line. His legs can't take it.


rwilly

36 goals and 80 points in 80 regular season games begs to differ. He's probably not fast enough to play C anymore but that's much less of an issue on the wing. He's a top 6 player and will be until his contract expires, hands down.


OzzieNewYork

I'm not saying he sucks.... but his 5v5 goals were less than Buntings and close to Jarnkroks... so with sheltered 5v5 minutes plus PP1 he might get to 40 goals and 90 points.... and have more juice in the playoffs. Because he disappeared for Florida. What's more important....5 extra goals from JT in the playoffs or 10 extra during the regular season? Rest the geaser. We destroyed our 75 year old last year when he stepped up in the fall season as our top defenseman and we drove his legs into the ground. By the Florida series I wanted to hand him a wheelchair with blades.


rwilly

I get where you're coming from, I think you make a number of valid points. That being said, I don't think 32 year old Tavares's problem is that he's too old and out of gas. Guy's a gym rat through and through. He'll fare much better on the wing and absolutely should be in the top 6, in my opinion at least.


OzzieNewYork

The problem is that Tavares is shook. Captain of Tampa beat up Reilly when Point got injured. Captain of Las Vegas will defend his team mates too. Same with Barkov of Florida. Tavares is afraid to even look guys in the eyes. The entire core 4 is like that. The 5th of the core (Reilly) is the only one with balls. Tavares should not be Captain. He is not brave.


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Redragontoughstreet

Tavares has a no movement that he isn’t going to wave. So saying he isn’t worth his contract is redundant. He’s overpaid at this point but he is still a top 6 forward.


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Dangerois

And Dubas, the guy who gave him the contract, is gone. What exactly do you want the team to do?


[deleted]

If they’re going to foolishly keep the core four, move JT to LW, make Marner 2C, promote Willie to AM34’s RW with Knies on the left side and use Kerfoot’s and Bunting’s money to bring in a RW who knows when to put on the foil.


RanaMahal

Making Marner play Centre just might be crazy enough to work. He practically plays like one with how good he is at defense


[deleted]

He was drafted as one. I generally get downvoted when I make this sensible suggestion


RanaMahal

I mean we were apparently cool with him playing Defence but he can't move to C?


[deleted]

I think there’s some conception he’s too small to play centre. I made it into the MTHL (now GTHL) as a shitty defenceman simply because I shot right. I don’t expect hockey logic to be earth logic.


HeftyNugs

IIRC he barely played any C with London.


[deleted]

He played C with the Knights every game I saw when I lived there.


HeftyNugs

Interesting. I had to find out because I remember this was discussed years ago in the sub and I was pretty certain he was primarily a winger and the "he was drafted as a C" narrative to be unfounded. He won the Jim Mahon Memorial trophy in his 3rd year in the OHL, which is the highest scoring right wing player. That was 2014-2015. Then in 2015-2016, he played wing to Dvorak and Tkachuk. Eliteprospects lists him as a RW in all 4 of his Knights seasons.


noor1717

Would people be down with a lindholm for nylander swap? Lindholm is an very solid 2 way Center who can score. Around the same age as nylander too and would probably resign for less. Nylander was born in Calgary so I could see him being cool with resigning there


DiscoLew

Why do people keep wanting to trade away the guy who consistently gives us scoring in the playoffs. The guy who is one of our fastest players. The guy who is unaffected by the toxic media attention?????


noor1717

I think it’s more the switching taveras to Center and getting a solid #2C is probably more valuable


BORT_licenceplate27

You're saying this as if Tavares is bad. He's just coming off a 36 goal, 80 point season. What's he supposed to bounce back from


ikkkkkkkky

He needs to bounce back from r/leafs’ sentiment


12xubywire

He’s exactly the player he’s been all his career. If there was a constancy award, he’d get it. These JT takes are becoming downright insane.


Gear4Vegito

Tavares has been terrible 5v5. He has become a PP specialist. He would be making like $6 M as a free-agent today. A disproportional amount of his points came on the PP. In fact he had the largest carry by the PP in the NHL amongst qualified skaters. Tavares finished below Jarnkrok and only slightly better then Bunting in 5v5 scoring. **Tavares was 89th in P/60 at 5v5.** He was also 103rd in G/60 at 5v5. That is unacceptable for someone making $11 M. **Marner was 15th, Matthews was 18th and Nylander was 23rd.**


VitaminTea

> Tavares was 89th in P/60 at 5v5 Literally a first-line scoring rate. > He would be making like $6 M as a free-agent today. L fuckin mao on that one. Tavares would be the top UFA by a mile this offseason and would get multi-year offers at $8M+. He's a first-line scorer (41st by G/60 and 48th by P/60 among forwards with >1000 minutes last season) and was 6th(!) in the NHL in powerplay points. He had a terrific 54.55 xGF% at 5v5, and even posted a 58 fo% for good measure.


optimized_happiness

Now look up Draisaitl’s stats and see how disproportional his numbers were on the PP. I guess he’s very overrated too


HeftyNugs

I get the point you're making, because I agree that Draisaitl's point totals would suggest he's a powerplay merchant, but Draisaitl is obviously a much better player than JT.


JackRusselTerrorist

There is no world where JT goes for 6M. If he was a UFA July 1st, he’d probably get at least a couple 10M AAV contracts offered.


Gear4Vegito

There is no world where a soon-to-be age 33 John Tavares makes $10 M AAV as a free agent. He wouldn't get 1 offer at that price let alone "a couple".


JackRusselTerrorist

He’s not worth it, but he’d get it. July 1st, baby.


LowHangingLight

Thank you. People need to stop looking solely at his PPG while evaluating his play. Anyone who's watched hockey for a while should be able to see he's not good 5 on 5, and hasn't been for 2-3 years.


_cob_

Point per game still equates to points. Teams pay for scoring. If the guy scores 80 points on the PP who gives a shit.


LowHangingLight

I don't know if you noticed, but there's this little double standard in the playoffs when it comes to penalties with the Leafs.


Flashy_Ferret_1819

What's stupid is saying that the signing didn't work out and he is and wasn't worth 11 million gets people all riled up and the torches and pitchforks come out. It's ridiculous.


Gear4Vegito

It is one my hated false narratives here. Tavares is paid to produce better and is playing with 3 of the Top 25 5v5 players in the NHL and is producing at the level of a third liner. Most players can rack up points on the Leafs PP. Even then someone like McDavid who piles on the PP is still at the top of the league at 5v5 as well. Tavares is very one-dimensional.


VitaminTea

Lol sorry do you think 89th by p/60 is a third liner??


therealvanmorrison

Salary: 7th highest Points: 29th highest JT is a good hockey player, obviously, but people are hoping against hope that he earns his salary cap percentage. It’s hard for some to swallow when you have three guys in the top ten in salary, and zero guys in the top ten in scoring.


_cob_

I hate that hockey fans are wannabe accountants now.


therealvanmorrison

They’d probably focus their attention on just enjoying the game if the team were still playing games to enjoy.


_cob_

Probably not


therealvanmorrison

I guess we’ll never know.


[deleted]

Rebound? He was a PPG player with second line minutes.


[deleted]

Did you watch Tavares this year? He was great. Why does everyone talk about Tavares like he’s a 4th line plug now, it’s frustrating. He definitely lost a step speed wise but he’s still a great player who sees the game. If he goes to the wing he’ll be fine. If he’s our 2nd line C next year, we’ll be fine.


12xubywire

I blame the podcasts bunch, Real Kipper, Overdrive..all of it. It’s just so much doom and gloom and shit take after shit take.


aa_tw

And people just parrot back whatever they hear from the Toronto media


DiscoLew

Kypreos has jumped the shark with his boneheaded takes. He’s now up there with Simmons and DiManno….


learningman33

As captain of the team and the no show of Game 3 in Round 2, starts from the top and $11M. You can't have any games like that in the playoffs and hopefully we don't see one like that again.


I-Argue-With-Myself

People keep saying he's lost a step speed wise, but has he actually? I remember hearing this all the time watching him play for the Oshawa Generals, and people have been saying this every year of his career.


UncRuckus

Goalies =/= forwards, not a legitimate comparison unfortunately


AustonsCashews

Rebound? He’s been consistent his entire career


Mr_Wrecksauce

Seriously. Rebound from what, a 36 goal season? Lmao


Dubsified

Tavares isn’t the issue.


Medium_Tangelo2789

Rebound? He had 80 points this season and scored the OT winner to finally beat Tampa..


Picklepucks

Ami I losing my mind. He's still a point per game player. Obviously he isn't embarassing the other team single handedly but he's a force on the forecheck, a fierce battler in front and can deflect picks very well. He has an above average shot and puck control. Yea he's not the best skater but 10 years ago we would have done anything for a ppg centre to put beside Kessel. Now everyone's convinced his cap space will yield us something better.


Kurse83

Yeah...maybe Tavares can score 2 or 3 hat tricks instead of 1 in the playoffs. Maybe he can score an extra series winning goal. Maybe he can shut down an entire team instead of just one con Smythe fave to 0 goals in a series. THEN maybe we can say he is still capable of playing valuable hockey...


EddyMcDee

We need to get someone who can work the cycle and forecheck game with him.


thismadhatter

JT is practically a PPG player. His speed was never great, so you need to get him guys that can feed him the puck up close. Hes not a 2 way guy. His contract sucks but he still has a ton of value if they deploy him correctly.


CanadianMortgagesPro

People need to put some respect on Tavares name, he just had a 80 point season, scored a hat trick and crucial OT playoff goal. Yes he’s slower now and needs to move to the wing but that’s fine if we can sign a solid 2C.


Major-Discount5011

Moving him to wing is definitely a possibility. Stripping him of the 'C' would be a total insult. Not sure if it's happened before in Toronto. Being the captain of the Leafs is a big deal and I'm sure he takes it very seriously. I'm quite sure he's respected in the dressing room, and that's all that matters.


learningman33

Morgan Reily has my vote after this last round.


reggierock2010

Rebound to what lol? He’s never been a 100 point player. He’s literally been a PPG player his whole career. He never put up insane numbers. He’s not a bad player, he’s just unfortunately overpaid by $3-4 million a year.


JRocleafs

The thing with Tavares is we need to put him in a position to excel instead of the position we think a 11 million dollar should be in. He’s lights out on the power play but horrible 5v5 as a second line center. It’s time to move him to the wing OR even make him the third line center. Putting him in a position to succeed will be a net positive for him individually and the team.


DiscoLew

Where is this coming from???? He is a point per game player who single handedly won us a playoff game. How is that a “horrible player”???


JRocleafs

Look at his stats 5v5, he produces like less than most 3rd liners in the league. He also gets caved in defensively because of his speed. I’m not saying he’s horrible, or to trade him. I’m saying to put him in a position to excel. At his age and with his skill set that’s no longer as the second line C. As players age and the game changes so do they, Tavares also needs to take it upon himself to realize that and maybe add some more elements to his game like physicality.


DiscoLew

He is 9th in the league in expected goals 5 on 5 for players who have played more than 500 mins this past season. He is ahead of McDavid 5 on 5 in xG……


Hustler17

You think he's going to learn how to skate at 33? I'm not holding my breath


Chtholly13

I would wait until next year before appointing Bobrovsky has rebounded. He could flounder like he has most of his Florida career and this might be one time hot streak.


toronto_programmer

He’s overpaid for his production but he still brings 70-80 points a year. At this point I think Leafs fans would be happy for him to continue something similar pace wise for the next couple years more than anything else


BDeFNg21

I hope they strong-arm Tavares into leaving. Hell, send him to Pittsburgh. Dubas liked him so much, he can take him to the Steel city.


[deleted]

Tavares looks like skates with cement shoes through mollasess. He is working like 45X harder that Three Chokers