It’s almost 2 p.m. on a Friday, and the sun is shining brightly in Los Angeles.
John Tavares isn’t out enjoying it. Not yet, anyway.
Even though his Toronto Maple Leafs were officially eliminated from the playoffs the day before, Tavares is still at work, still riding the bike in the dark bowels of Crypto.com Arena, preparing like he always would for a Saturday game against the Los Angeles Kings.
Tavares has never played meaningless games in April for the Maple Leafs — until now. He has never missed the playoffs with the Maple Leafs — until now. The future of the Maple Leafs has never been this murky for him and everyone else — until now.
How is he handling it — his 17th season in the NHL (and eighth with the Leafs) ending not only without a Stanley Cup but also as far from it as ever before?
Here’s how.
The Leafs made the playoffs, often comfortably, in each of Tavares’ first seven seasons. Those teams of his won a lot in the regular season — 319 times, in fact, fifth most in the NHL.
This season has been nothing like that. More losing. More dysfunction (including the firing of general manager Brad Treliving late last month). So much turbulence. It has felt more like what Tavares left behind in Long Island in 2018, with the New York Islanders missing the postseason in each of his final two seasons there.
“It’s just …” said Tavares, trailing off before a long pause, when asked how it felt to miss the playoffs for the first time as a Leaf. “You’re disappointed with where we put ourselves and not having the opportunity to compete for the Stanley Cup. I try not to look at things like it was a waste of a year or anything. You can still learn a lot, find some positives. But clearly, there’s just a lot of things that we gotta do to be better and to be a playoff team.”
“Just reflecting on ourselves,” he went on about the season-long struggle, “it’s just the consistency of our play. When things weren’t going well, we just couldn’t seem to change the momentum. It just seemed like it would go (on) for extended periods.”
The longest losing streaks, in fact, of Tavares’ Leafs tenure, including an eight-gamer out of the Olympic break that destroyed any hope of the postseason.
The why of it all, he said, would require a lot of “soul-searching.”
Tavares had mentioned that he tried not to look at the season as a “waste of a year,” but it’s fair to wonder whether that was exactly how it felt for him at this stage in his career. Though he still has another three years left on the four-year discount extension he signed shortly before the start of free agency last summer, Tavares will be 36 in the fall. He’s running out of chances, in other words, to do what he came home to do: win a Stanley Cup.
“Yeah, I certainly know I’m not on the front nine of my career,” he said. “Obviously, I haven’t won a Stanley Cup. Haven’t been close.
“It’s obviously really disappointing, on many levels, not to be there this year and, certainly, knowing where I’m at. I still think I’ve got lots of hockey left. But I don’t think I have a decade-plus.”
It seems like a lifetime ago that Tavares joined a young and exciting Leafs core of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander on a seven-year, $77 million contract on July 1, 2018.
The opportunity he thought he would have to pursue the Cup (and do so at home) fuelled that decision and fuels him still through the offseason, into camp and then over “the gantlet of 82 games.”
“Yeah, I don’t look at it as a waste,” he said, “but certainly, maybe, a missed opportunity, just with the type of team and type of players and people that we have.”
John Tavares is in his 17th season in the NHL and his eighth with the Maple Leafs. (John E. Sokolowski / Imagn Images)
Tavares is upfront about the responsibility he believes he bears for the failed season. Though he recently hit 30 goals for the eighth time in his career, he cited his own inconsistencies with and without the puck and “my expectation as a veteran player on the leadership side of things.”
The 35-year-old has been asking himself what he could have done better and even wondering whether he did the best he could.
“I know my intentions are always there, but obviously, at this level, you’re looking to execute and be really consistent at a high level,” Tavares said. “Obviously, I’m just trying to be accountable — that everyone’s a part of this. And certainly, from a leadership side of it and the role that I play, knowing that I play a significant piece in that. I know my part hasn’t been up to the level that it needs to be.
“So, I’m just trying to take that responsibility. First and foremost, before you look around on how we can get better, that I know I can be better myself.”
Even with everything that’s gone wrong this season, Tavares continues to believe he can win the Cup that eludes him in Toronto.
In his estimation, the league has never been tighter, the margin between good teams and bad ones never smaller. It’s what gives him hope about a turnaround as soon as next season.
“From top to bottom, there’s not many margins,” Tavares said. “I know Vancouver obviously hasn’t had a very good season. They just went into Colorado (and won),” he said with a chuckle, recalling an 8-6 Canucks win over the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Avalanche on April 1. “Seven-game series (between the teams), I don’t know. But the league, it’s amazing how fast things can change, and things can be turned around.”
Tavares looks around at an Atlantic Division that might not be as top-heavy as it once was but might also be deeper in quality teams, many of them young and on the rise, such as the Canadiens and Sabres.
“To me, the league has seen a little bit of a change this year,” he said. “Some clubs that haven’t been contending the last number of years, I feel like they’re on the cusp or put themselves in that mix. So, it just goes to show the challenge and the importance of continuing to never be satisfied, continuing to evolve, and understanding how difficult it is just to earn the opportunity to play for the Stanley Cup and to play in the playoffs. And it’s only getting harder.
“I still feel like there’s great opportunity (for the Leafs). There’s a lot of great people, great pieces. So, just continue to move forward and regroup when the time comes.”