TORONTO — Steady as a metronome, John Tavares is keeping a consistent beat in his 16th NHL season.
The loss of the Toronto Maple Leafs captaincy? The prospect of playing out an uncertain contract year? A new head coach with different priorities and ideas about how the game should be played?
None of these realities has knocked Tavares off course.
With the sands shifting at his feet and no shortage of things he might worry or wonder about, the 34-year-old centre has instead put his head down and poured all of his energy into pushing forward. That’s what new Leafs coach Craig Berube appreciates most about Tavares, who has 20 points to show for 21 games so far. The coach calls him a “true professional.”
“A guy who prepares like that day in and day out — every day — he’s going to keep playing and playing at a high level,” Berube said.
Ideally for Tavares, he’d love to keep playing in Toronto.
More than six years after choosing his hometown team following a high-profile free agent courting period — the San Jose Sharks, Dallas Stars, Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning were the others given a chance to pitch him face-to-face at his agency’s Los Angeles offices in late June 2018 — Tavares has little interest in testing the open market for a second time next summer.
He and his wife Aryne have planted deep roots in the city. They’ve got a growing family with sons Jace and Axton and daughter Raelynn, all born since Tavares signed a $77 million, seven-year contract with the Leafs.
Plus the original objective of bringing a Stanley Cup to Toronto remains. The team has qualified for the playoffs in each of his six seasons and Tavares scored the series-clinching goal in overtime when the Leafs eliminated Tampa Bay from the first round in 2023. He was unavailable due to injury for the biggest postseason disappointment of this era in Leafs history, when Toronto squandered a 3-1 series lead to the Montreal Canadiens in 2021.
Tavares neither projects to be, nor pretends to be, the same player he was when he signed his last contract. He’s going to be taking a pay cut this time around. The question is exactly how much less he’ll make.
Leafs management and his agent Pat Brisson of CAA Hockey have engaged in a series of discussions throughout the fall, according to league sources briefed on those talks, but haven’t yet landed on an extension that works for all involved.
At the end of a summer during which Tavares graciously relinquished the captaincy to teammate Auston Matthews — bringing his kids to the August press conference in No. 34 Matthews sweaters when the change was formally announced — there didn’t seem to be any real urgency on a contract extension. It was only natural to wait and see how everything fell into place under Berube. And with Tavares celebrating his 34th birthday on Sept. 20, gauging where he was at on a personal level made sense, too.
The on-ice results have been strong so far. They tell the story of an athlete who is still highly driven to perform at the highest level.
Not only is Tavares on pace for 35 goals and 77 points, the Leafs have enjoyed a strong territorial advantage during his even-strength minutes by generating 55 percent of expected goals and scoring 71 percent of the actual ones. When Matthews went down with injury this month, Tavares stepped into the top-line centre role and has helped the team go 7-2-0 without its best player.
“He’s had a terrific start to the year,” Leafs GM Brad Treliving said of Tavares during a recent interview with The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun. “He’s handled everything so well.”
Given his rate of production, the list of comparables the Tavares camp can bring to the table covers veteran players earning as much as $6.5-$7 million annually. For example, Claude Giroux had 0.85 points per game in his platform season when he signed a three-year deal in Ottawa carrying a $6.5 million AAV in July 2022. Los Angeles Kings captain Anze Kopitar was fresh off a campaign of 0.9 points per game in 2023 when he signed a two-year extension with a $7 million AAV.
Both of those players were at similar stages of decorated careers to where Tavares finds himself now.
On the Leafs side of this negotiation, they naturally want to keep the contract number down. Every bit of cap space counts in Toronto. They might point to the $5 million Patrice Bergeron earned, including bonuses, during his last season in Boston. Or even the last two years of Joe Pavelski’s career with the Dallas Stars, when he took home $6 million and $5.5 million, respectively.
They are the only team that can offer Tavares the chance to keep playing at home. And while the Leafs continue to value Tavares’ play and the intangible qualities he brings — helping set an example for the organization’s young players and even opening his house to Matthew Knies and Fraser Minten when they first arrived in Toronto — they need to preserve the ability to invest elsewhere on roster upgrades as he ages and becomes less productive.
Given the dynamics at play, it wouldn’t be surprising if the sides landed on a compromise that sees some of the money deferred beyond the life of the next contract. The Leafs used that mechanism to lower the cap hit on Jake McCabe’s recent extension and both sides in this negotiation are believed to be open to exploring a similar type of structure for Tavares.
For his part, Tavares seems to have a realistic view of where he’s at in his career and what he’s up against. He cites work done on his skating with consultant Paul Matheson in recent years as an example of something that’s helped him push the limits of his performance. A former No. 1 NHL draft pick who entered the league with massive expectations and became a 1,000-plus point scorer, he’s trying to strike the balance between leaning into his longtime strengths and adding new elements to his game.
“I’ve called it an evolution a lot over the last couple of years,” Tavares said. “I truly think that’s what it is. I can’t try to compare myself and my game to 10 years ago or my first year that I came here, things like that.
“A lot happens within the league, within the team, within yourself and you gain so much more experience and knowledge.”
Historically, star players have often had to wait before signing fourth NHL contracts that take them into their twilight.
While Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby and Tampa Bay Lightning captain Victor Hedman — who signed new deals last summer — are two exceptions to that rule, consider the list of those who recently finished out third contracts entirely before getting their next one: Giroux, Pavelski, Bergeron, Alex Ovechkin, Steven Stamkos, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, among others.
Should that list grow to include Tavares this year, there’s no reason to expect any uncertainty it creates to derail a promising season. He’s a master at remaining in the moment and believes the contract situation will ultimately resolve itself.
“I’m playing the game at its highest level,” Tavares said. “I get to play on a great team with great players and I just try to enjoy that. Where I’m at now, I know I’ve got a lot left in the tank, but also I think there’s a great appreciation for just what I’m doing every day.”
(Photo of John Tavares and Auston Matthews: Andrew Francis Wallace / Toronto Star via Getty Images)
