If you want an indication of how happy John Tavares is to be joining the Toronto Maple Leafs for the next seven years, just check out his Twitter account. To be sure, the handle@91Tavares figures to get a few bazillion more followers on Canada Day. Tavares’ account is accompanied by a picture of a young Tavares swaddled in a bed covered in Toronto Maple Leafs blankets and pillows accompanied by the message: “Not everyday you can live a childhood dream.”
No, it’s not every day you can do that. Only on Canada Day and only when you’re an unrestricted free agent facing the most vexing decision of your life. So after literally years of speculation, Tavares is a member of the Maple Leafs, who suddenly become a very serious Stanley Cup contender and the most high-profile free agent to change teams since Scott Niedermayer more than a decade ago.
The date of Aug. 9, 1988 is embedded in the minds of every hockey fan as the day Wayne Gretzky was traded. Should Tavares lead the one of the league’s most promising teams to where it thinks he can, this date almost 30 years later will be just as significant. Yes, this is that big. Almost no star players change teams these days and one has. Not only that, he’s gone to the New York Yankees (without the championships) of the NHL, a team that is beloved by its fans and seen as the evil empire by those who are not.
This deal was completed in a matter of days, but in reality it actually took years to complete. For the past two years, there has been all kinds of speculation on where Tavares would end up and his hometown team was always on the radar. Judging by his reaction to the signing, it appears that Tavares was thinking the same way. He could have told the New York Islanders to back a Brinks truck up to the holding dock at the Barclays Center and give him the maximum money on an eight-year deal, and they were fully willing to give him the $11 million salary he got in Toronto. But Tavares chose one fewer year and $11 million fewer dollars, in part because the lure of playing at home was strong, and the fact that he could legitimately win a Stanley Cup there made it impossible to refuse.
So much so that he reportedly took $14 million less over seven years to join the Leafs than he would have to go to the San Jose Sharks. The Sharks were offering $13 million a year and they’re a contending team. That’s how badly Tavares wanted to play in Toronto.
And that’s the interesting dynamic here. In the pre-salary cap days, the Leafs were masters of throwing big money at star players who grew up in Toronto and had clearly passed their primes. Some of them worked out pretty well (Thomas, Steve) and some of them were disastrous (Lindros, Eric and O’Neill, Jeff). But never have they been able to secure a player who, at least statistically, is in the prime of his career. (Logic would suggest he is not, but let’s not quibble about that right now.)
There is no doubt the Leafs become an instant Stanley Cup contender and considering the long-term decisions they have to make on Willie Nylander, Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, the sooner the better. To be sure, there will be no team in the league that is as strong down the middle of the ice with Matthews, Tavares and Nazem Kadri. All three have the opportunity to thrive with the Leafs, giving them lots of options to avoid matchups and allowing Kadri, Tavares’ linemate for a time in junior hockey and a 32-goal scorer last season, to face third-line matchups.
But the same way teams won’t be able to cover all three, there’s also only one puck and so much ice time to go around. Much has been speculated about how this will be accepted by Matthews, who just two years ago was identified as the alpha dog and the undisputed leader of the franchise. Winning games and success will take care a lot of those concerns, but it could also put the Maple Leafs in a quandary down the road. Should Tavares play on the second line with Marner, the latter could post the kind of scoring totals that would put him into double digits in the millions himself. To be sure, there’s no rush for him to go sign a deal now when he has a year to play with one of the most talented centers in the league.
In the first four years of this deal, there is almost no downside to this contract. It’s actually not what the Maple Leafs needed the most, but what the Maple Leafs needed the most was not available on the free agent market. This makes them considerably stronger. You can never, ever be too deep down the middle and the Leafs will be a truly feared offensive machine in the next couple of years.
After years of having players in their prime producing years turn their back on them, the Maple Leafs grabbed the brass ring, got by far the shiniest bauble in the 2018 free agency class and arguably the most coveted free agent of all-time. It’s been 51 years and counting since they last won the Stanley Cup and they have never been as close to ending that drought than they are today.
