Daily Faceoff Live: John Tavares’ career path might be similar to Steve Yzerman’s
John Tavares hit another milestone on Tuesday night against the Pittsburgh Penguins, scoring the 400th goal of his NHL career.
The Hall of Fame weekend has just wrapped up, and it’s not out of the question to assume Tavares might be part of that conversation when his time comes, but will he be considered if he fails to have playoff success with the Toronto Maple Leafs?
Mike McKenna talked on Daily Faceoff Live about Tavares career and what he’ll need to do to be a Hall of Fame lock.
Mike McKenna: “Yeah I agree with you. I think for Tavares, in some ways to me his career is kind of a comparable to Steve Yzerman. And I don’t want people to go off the deep end here, and try and take an all time great in Yzerman and throw Tavares in that mix, but what I mean by that is that Yzerman was the captain of the Red Wings forever it seems.
Like if Tavares is the captain of the Maple Leafs, and as Yzerman’s career progressed, he wasn’t necessarily always the leading scorer for the Red Wings, but his production shifted a little bit. He went from scoring a ton of goals to being more of a playmaker, and Tavares has done that too for Toronto. So as he gets into the twilight of this contract, he’s got two years left, he better have a couple of deep runs towards the Stanley Cup with him as the leader if he’s going to supplant himself as one of the top memories, top people in franchise history for Toronto.
Because otherwise he’s just an also ran. He’s not going to lead this team in scoring, and you’re going to look back on it like ‘Well, I guess he was an okay captain, but we didn’t accomplish anything’ instead of ‘Man, we won, he was a great captain, and even though his goal scoring was down, his point per game totals were still there’. There’s different ways to look at it. And again, I would almost look towards Yzerman’s career for inspiration, and if I’m Tavares, that longevity and ability to adapt over time.”
You can watch the full episode here…