‘A lot of belief’: Don’t tell Maple Leafs’ Tavares he’s turning back the clock
Amid three potentially derailing stresses — the removed captaincy, the national-team disappointment, the uncertain future in Toronto — John Tavares has thrived. The Maple Leafs centre is producing very nice numbers under new coach Craig Berube.
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John and Aryne Tavares kickstarted a family tradition three summers ago.
They pack their children — Jace, Axton, and Rae; the three names Dad scribbles onto the tape stretched around the knob of his hockey sticks in Sharpie — into the car and flee north, to one of Ontario’s provincial parks. A different one each September.
From Labour Day weekend through to the following weekend, they retreat somewhere the hockey-obsessed, sleeps-at-the-rink patriarch can’t find ice and can find peace.
It’s fun and simple. It’s restorative and explorative.
Before the final season of Tavares’s contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs, the family headed to Killbear on Georgian Bay.
“It was a blast. We had great weather, and it was a great way to recharge after a really good month of August up north in Muskoka, training and getting ready for the season. Taking a little bit of a break, getting unplugged and being with them the whole time. Being out in nature and just exploring different places,” an upbeat Tavares explained during a conversation at training camp.
“We’re glamping,” he qualified, a little sheepishly.
“You know, three under five, it has to be. My in-laws have been doing it for decades. My wife grew up doing it. And I always talk about getting unplugged and grounded in the summer and being in one place and just slowing things down. Being as present as you can be, especially with three young kids, and catching up with them.”
Jace and Axton’s kayak skills are improving. Jace, the oldest, can ride a bike now, so he rips around on a two-wheeler. They’ll go on family hikes. Mix in some fishing. Don’t rush the coffee. John is teaching the boys how to build a fire.
“Of course, doing a few s’mores. Kids love doing that. And just slowing it down. The mornings are real slow. We’re there with some family members and some family friends as well. So, they get to hang out with them too, which is very meaningful, very impactful. So, yeah.”
Tavares then paused and said something beautiful: “It’s nice when the day feels long.”
These days, they feel short on Tavares’s 34-year-old body.
The Maple Leafs, first place in the Atlantic Division, just played nine games and hopped six flights in 16 days.
The 2024-25 schedule has been truncated, in part, because of February’s 4 Nations Face-Off and the showcasing of a Team Canada squad that Tavares desperately wanted to make and didn’t (yet).
Following a night like Tavares enjoyed Sunday, when his natural hat trick propelled his team to a comeback win over the Buffalo Sabres, then, it’s nice to hear those around the new alternate captain slow down and big him up.
“He’s the ultimate pro, man,” Max Domi said. “He’s a huge part of this team. Has been for a long time. We all love Johnny. Really happy for him. He comes up clutch over and over and over again, his whole career.”
Tavares may have only seen Round 2 of the playoffs twice, but he authored the Round 1–clinching goal on both occasions. This season, only Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl (seven) has more game-winners than Tavares (six).
But it wasn’t only the game-winning hat trick Sunday. Tavares was buzzing all night, on a back-to-back no less, and threw defenceman Bowem Byram in the spin cycle so bad, Elliotte Friedman packaged Byram up and traded him to the Canucks (wink).
“He just keeps working. I don’t know what to tell you,” coach Craig Berube says. “This guy’s got a heavy stick. Smart. Competitive. And he works at his game constantly, even at this age, and he’s still doing a great job. You know, it’s great to see him. He’s been excellent for us all year.”
Amid three potentially derailing stresses — the removed captaincy, the national-team disappointment, the uncertain future in Toronto — Tavares has thrived.
He’s producing at a 41-goal, 77-point pace.
His shooting percentage (15.2) and ice time (18:13) are the highest they’ve been in six years. He’s winning 56.5 per cent of his faceoffs, better than his career average (53.6).
Moreover, Berube is trusting him more defensively than Sheldon Keefe did.
On Sunday, for instance, the coach threw Tavares at Tage Thompson’s heavy top line to free Auston Matthews’s unit up offensively.
At even strength, Tavares is starting most of his shifts in the D-zone (52.5 per cent) for the first time in his 16-year career, and he’s still tilting the ice in the proper direction.
No power-play merchant, Tavares is tied with prime William Nylander for the team lead in even-strength goals (11) and one behind Art Ross threat Mitch Marner in even-strength points (23).
Tavares’s 21 blocked shots through 30 games — an indicator of his buy-in to the Berube Way — will have him crushing a career high in that category, and his plus-5 rating is his best in four years.
What the 34-year-old will not do, however, is feed that narrative that he stumbled upon the Fountain of Youth on one of those hikes through the woods.
“I’m just playing,” Tavares said, following his hatty. “I got a lot of belief in my game and what I can do, whether that’s scoring or just making an impact all over the ice. So, continue to help this team as best I can.
“My whole life, I’ve been able to produce offensively, score goals, and just want to continue to do that when those chances present themselves.”
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Sure, Tavares’s PDO is running hot (103.6). But any good fortune has been earned.
The only Maple Leafs star to keep playing hockey following May’s gutting Game 7 defeat in Boston, Tavares captained Canada overseas at the world championship. Then got right back in the workshop.
An honest self-assessor, Tavares knows skating has never been his strong suit.
So, he and Leafs development coach Patrick O’Sullivan emphasized acceleration and adjusted his stride. (“We just continue pushing the envelope, continuing to believe there’s more there,” Tavares says.) Tavares believes those busy shifts on the Olympic-sized ice at the worlds in Prague helped his feet.
The centreman and O’Sullivan also pored over video together, studying various situations and ways to make the best play possible under duress, at both ends of the ice.
But this summer, Tavares drilled down more on offensive execution — a response to scoring “only” 29 goals in 2023-24 and, more importantly, the Leafs averaging just 1.7 goals per game in the Bruins series.
“I felt in the first half of last year, especially, I was getting lots of good looks, lots of good opportunities, but I wasn’t as sharp as I’m capable of being,” Tavares said during our pre-season interview.
“There’s just been a lot of talk about producing in the playoffs. Not that that’s my focus going in, but we know the importance of scoring — and it’s been challenging for us the last couple of series we’ve been in.”
Tavares is a huge believer in habits, ritual, tradition.
That the focus of the off-season can fuel the 82-game grind, and that confidence and production in the regular season should translate come playoff time.
“Big games, big moments,” Tavares said, “you want to to be counted on.”
