Maple Leafs sign star forward to four-year extension

The Toronto Maple Leafs are in the final stages of signing John Tavares to an extension. The move was first reported by TSN’s Darren Dreger. It was later confirmed by the player on the Instagram page for the John Tavares Foundation — and then by the team themselves. Dreger adds that the deal with be a four-year, $17.52M extension with an annual average value of $4.38M.

Tavares’ extension will include $2M in deferred salary — a practice soon to be outlawed in the NHL’s next collective bargaining agreement, per Chris Johnston of The Athletic. Johnston also shares that Tavares’ deal will carry a no-movement clause through the first two seasons, and a five-team no-trade list in the final two.

Toronto gets an important piece of business accomplished, for a price well under what many Leafs fans expected. The deal is a near-$4M discount against Tavares’ player value, calculated by The Athletic’s statistician Dom Luszczyscyn. Tavares was coming off of a monstrous, seven-year, $77M contract signed with Toronto on July 1, 2018. The deal ate up 13.84% of Toronto’s cap-hit at the time and often served to limit the team’s roster flexibility, alongside lofty deals for Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander.

Now age 34, Tavares will drop his cap hit by nearly two-thirds and likely ride out the remainder of his career in a Maple Leafs jersey. He’s a Mississauga native, with deep roots in and around the Leafs organization. That includes serving as the team’s captain from 2019 to 2024. He was replaced this season by Matthews.

Tavares’ last contract was often scrutinized, but his performance on the deal should be remembered fondly. He filled a hardy role as the team’s second-line center for the duration of the contract and totaled 222 goals and 493 points in 515 games. That mark ranks third on the Maple Leafs since the start of the 2018-19 season, behind Marner (611 points in 498 games) and Matthews (595 points in 485 games). Tavares also scored 31 points in 51 playoff games in that stretch — fifth on the Leafs behind Matthews, Nylander, Marner and Morgan Rielly.

Tavares has been a staple of every lineup he’s played for. Prior to joining his hometown Maple Leafs, he was the quintessential top-line center for the New York Islanders spanning nine seasons. The Islanders originally drafted Tavares first-overall in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, following the end of his exceptional status career in the OHL. He joined the team immediately following his draft, and scored an impressing 54 points in 81 games as a rookie.

His hot-start in the NHL continued to grow-and-grow over his time with the Islanders. Tavares recorded 31 goals and 81 points in the 2011-12 season, and topped that again with 38 goals and 86 points in 2014-15. By that time, he had already served two full years as the Islanders’ captain, and earned the second all-star berth of his career. Tavares would remain New York’s captain, and a perennial All-Star, until he left the squad after the 2017-18 campaign.

Tavares’ departure from Long Island, NY was one of the most scrutinized moves in recent NHL history. It was seen by many as a captain abandoning his post, with a preference for the glitz and glamour of a big market. The Islanders have appeared in four of a possible six postseasons since Tavares’ departure, while Toronto has made the playoffs in every year since their big addition.

In a summer where Toronto seems headed for a sure breakup with superstar winger Marner, they’ll opt to not shake the boat too much by also losing Tavares. Instead, Tavares will remain locked-in as Toronto’s second-line center through the foreseeable future. He scored a stout 38 goals and 74 points in 75 games this season — his highest scoring pace since netting 36 goals and 80 points in 80 games of the 2022-23 campaign. Those are electric scoring totals for a player well over the hill of his NHL career. At a cheap price for the next four seasons, even two-thirds of those scoring totals would make Tavares a contract worth hanging onto.