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John Tavares’ power game, hockey intelligence shows flashes of his prime
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Photo credit: Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images
Arun Srinivasan
Nov 22, 2024, 12:00 EST
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John Tavares emerged as a phenom in Toronto’s minor hockey circuit two decades ago and hasn’t looked back. As a teenager, Tavares was lauded for his outstanding hockey intelligence, his innate goal-scoring ability and his physical superiority, even against players nearly two years older than him, while starring for the Toronto Marlboros of the Greater Toronto Hockey League. Against the world’s best players, Tavares’ superior spatial navigation and strength are paying dividends for an injury-riddled Toronto Maple Leafs team that remains a contender in large part due to their former captain.
The notion that Tavares was motivated extrinsically by the captaincy was denounced during the handoff ceremony to Auston Matthews on August 14. Tavares is a hockey lifer, who badly wants to win a Stanley Cup for his hometown Maple Leafs. This was already part of his lore prior to Brad Treliving’s explanation, it’s scripted plainly during his every move.
Tavares is amid a resurgent campaign and there’s a legion of fans and analysts who owe him an apology, even if he’d likely block out the discourse surrounding him in any event. There was a false notion being circulated that Tavares had lost a step as a skater, which was accepted by some as gospel, through the eye test, even though NHL Edge data never correlated this idea. Tavares is currently ranked in the 56th percentile of top skating speed, while in the 76th percentile of players with speed bursts over 20 miles per hour.
In the event that the skeptics want to reject the data, or the premise that Tavares hasn’t lost a step, it’s not worth fighting over. Tavares has never been considered a plus-skater, dating back to his days as an exceptional status prospect entering the Ontario Hockey League. He’s cooking in the inner slot, at the net-front and he’s been instrumental in guiding the Maple Leafs’ power play back to a 20 percent clip, after a dormant team-wide start through October.
Prior to Friday’s games, Tavares was tied for 19th league-wide in individual expected goals at 5-on-5 with Evgeni Malkin, tied for 50th with 10 points, tied for 26th in individual high-danger chances (20) with William Nylander among others, while winning 58.3 percent of his faceoffs in all situations, where Tavares has been deployed pretty evenly in all situations.
Toronto is sporting a plus-eight goal differential when Tavares is on the ice at 5-on-5, while holding a 55.5 percent share of the expected goals. The expected goals are right in line with what Tavares has produced throughout his Maple Leafs’ tenure, it’s still really damn good, and when you consider that he lost 10 pounds early in the season due to an illness, while taking on an increased share of the offensive load throughout November due to Auston Matthews’ seven-game absence, it’s all the more remarkable.
Tavares is dominating in the inner slot this season and it’s been a real focal point when observing the Maple Leafs, both at 5-on-5, and watching the power play overcome a 3-of-39 start to the season, morphing into a top-13 unit (and rising!) unit in the NHL. He’s using his size well to shield off defenders when hounding pucks in high-danger areas, both as a goal-scorer and playmaker. Here’s an example from Halloween against the Seattle Kraken.
And here’s another example from a November 8 victory against the Detroit Red Wings, where Tavares uses his frame to box out any close out attempt from Moritz Seider and fires away. It’s not a particularly effective close out attempt but good things happen when you get pucks to the net and when the game is simplified to its core elements, Tavares thrives.
Toronto’s initial power play failures were the direct result of two things: there was an emphasis on optimizing shots at the top of the faceoff circle, searching for the ideal look instead of a merely good one hindered any efficacy, especially when teams knew the cross-ice pass was telegraphed. And when Toronto entered the offensive zone with speed, rather than the east-west approach that almost always involved a drop pass to Morgan Rielly, it didn’t allow other teams to get their base defence set. Tavares cruising to the slot and net-front solved both issues.
“He is playing really well for us,” Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube said of Tavares following a 3-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings on November 8. “He is just so good in tight areas with the puck. He is so good at that. He’s strong on the puck and does all of those little things right. He is getting rewarded for it.”
Tavares’ power game has been exceptional this season and it’s been really easy to catch as someone who covers the team, but these qualities are apparent to the neutral observer as well. He’s bringing out the best in Bobby McMann’s game during this mid-November stretch without Matthews by bullying his way to the net and creating second and third chances for his linemates. Here’s a prime example from Toronto’s 4-3 victory over the Washington Capitals, where Tavares asserted himself as the best player on the ice that evening. Capitals defenceman Matt Roy can’t contend with Tavares’ speed or physicality and Rasmus Sandin gets caught puck-watching while McMann taps home an easy one.
And here’s the full sequence of the play as Tavares with a head of steam is way too powerful for most defenders to contend with.
Tavares, alongside McMann and Mitch Marner was outstanding during a November 16 overtime win against the Edmonton Oilers. He occupied Connor McDavid’s attention on both sides of the ice, he was a menace on the forecheck and on McMann’s opening goal, he does the dirty work to set up the chance. Marner’s overtime winner is arguably the Maple Leafs’ play of the season thus far, and Tavares was expertly used as a decoy off the game-winning rush.
“I think his dedication to the game. He’s a very prepared guy,” Berube said of Tavares on November 16 after a morning skate, prior to the Maple Leafs’ 4-3 victory over the Oilers, when asked about what makes him successful. “It starts with the summertime with him. Working on his game, working on his skating. He constantly tries to keep improving as he gets older.”
“I think more than anything, he’s a true professional and he knows what he needs to do to be prepared for each year, and as you get older, you have to do different things to stay up with the pace of the game and the speed of the game. It just starts with the summer and just being around him for a short time, day in and day out, I watch his preparation. A guy who prepares like that day in and day out, every day, is going to keep playing and playing at a high level.”
Tavares is completely locked in and of course, it’s only fitting to end this essay by showing his overtime winner, where he peels away for a breakaway against the Capitals, after Marner swatted the puck up the ice, following a massive Joseph Woll stop on Alexander Ovechkin. You can almost imagine Tavares mentally composing a response to the legion of critics who pointed to his supposed declining foot speed — but that would presuppose that he cares about the discourse, at all.
Tavares was always going to be locked in with the Maple Leafs still firmly in their contention window, he’s naturally handed off the captaincy to Matthews and has continued to excel as a near-elite offensive force, largely due to his power game and his hockey intelligence. The idea that Tavares’ decline would be facilitated through his skating may have been nonsense and his ability to think the game will always separate him from the vast majority of his peers, and these qualities have allowed Tavares to allow the Leafs to operate as a contender despite a wave of injuries to their forward corps.
All stats from NHL.com, Natural Stat Trick and MoneyPuck unless noted otherwise.

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