Tavares Signs with Leafs: Odds & Stat Projections for 2018-19

• The biggest fish on the free-agent market swam back to his childhood home this weekend as John Tavares signed a 7-year, $77-million contract with the Leafs.
• Toronto’s 2019 Stanley Cup odds instantly got much shorter, even though defense continues to be a huge question mark. 
• Before betting on the Leafs or drafting Tavares in your fantasy leagues, get the latest predictions for his first season in The Six. 

Arguably the best player to don a New York Islander jersey since Mike Bossy, John Tavares has left the only NHL team he’s ever played for in favor of his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs.

Tavares’ decision to leave Brooklyn and sign a 7-year, $77-million deal with the Leafs turned a potent Toronto offense — one which scored the second-most goals in the league last year (277) — into perhaps the deepest and most dangerous attack in the NHL.

Sportsbooks responded accordingly. As shown in our 2019 Stanley Cup futures trackers — which calculates every team’s average odds to win next year’s cup  — the Leafs jumped from an average of +1200 (7.7% probability) all the way to +700 (12.5% probability), making them the outright favorite in what had previously been a logjam at the top.

2019 Stanley Cup Odds (Post-Free Agency)

Is now the time to put your money in Toronto stock?

No.

There’s little value in betting on the Leafs right now. Hype is at its highest and the team has done nothing to address its biggest issue: improving its top two defense pairings. While the Leafs finished a respectable 12th in goals against last year (232), they were 21st in Fenwick (49.02%), meaning they gave up more shots/chances than they generated.

They also haven’t upgraded the goaltending situation so, come playoff time, they’ll once again be riding Frederik Andersen and his very pedestrian .912 postseason SV%. Adding Tavares certainly increases the likelihood that Toronto will snipe its way to a championship, but the addition does not almost double their chances, as the odds suggest.

That said, not every sportsbook has the Leafs at preposterously short odds. Toronto is listed at +1000, level with Nashville and Tampa, which is more reasonable.

John Tavares Statistical Projections (2018-19)

Tavares is an elite scorer in the prime of his career, but there’s only one puck and only so many minutes to go around. Early indications out of Toronto are that Tavares will anchor the second line between Mitch Marner and Zach Hyman, while Auston Matthews centers William Nylander and Patrick Marleau on the first line.

The Penguins have had Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin anchoring their first and second lines, respectively, for over a decade. It’s no coincidence that Malkin’s only 50-goal season came in 2011-12 when Crosby was limited to just 22 games. Malkin also recorded his highest shot total that year (339) by a wide margin: he’s never had over 300 shots on goal in any other year.

There is a world in which Matthews and Tavares both score 40 goals and 90 points, especially since both will feature on what should be a lethal PP1. But the more likely outcome is that they eat into each other’s totals and neither reaches those plateaus. Even as the undisputed top option with the Islanders, Tavares never scored 40 goals or 90 points. Of course, he’ll be surrounded by more talent in Toronto so his outlook is still pretty rosy from a fantasy perspective.

Maple Leafs Leading Scorer Odds (2018-19)

Matthews did something in his rookie season that Tavares has yet to do in his nine-year career: score 40 goals. With Marner and Nylander blossoming last season and the recently departed James Van Riemsdyk lighting the lamp consistently, Matthews’ assists-per-game pace went way up in his second year (from 0.35 APG to 0.47 APG). The third-year pro still hasn’t reached his ceiling, whereas we know what the 27-year-old Tavares is reasonably capable of: about 36 goals and 88 points, max.

There’s a decent chance that Tavares isn’t even the top scorer on his own line.

There’s a decent chance that Tavares isn’t even the top scorer on his own line. Mitch Marner led the Leafs with 69 points in 82 games last year, even though he only averaged a shade over 16 minutes of ice time per night. He was almost as prolific a scorer as Tavares in junior — Tavares averaged 1.75 PPG in four years in the OHL, while Marner averaged 1.63 PPG in three seasons — and, in today’s high-speed league, his 175-pound frame is not the impediment it used to be.

Marner led the team in PP points, as well, last year with 27. There’s little chance he comes off that top unit even with Tavares in town.

Maple Leafs Next Captain

Early indications out of Leaf-ville are that the team will be captain-less this year, just as they have been ever since Dion Phaneuf was traded in February 2016. Management wants the leadership situation to sort itself out before assigning anyone the onerous responsibility of wearing the C in hockey’s most heavily scrutinized market.

When the next captain is named, likely in the 2019-2020 season, count on it being Matthews. He’ll be entering his fourth season at that point, he will have been a Leaf for two years longer than Tavares, and he will probably have surpassed JT as a player, if he hasn’t already.

Yes, he’ll only be 22 years old, but Conor McDavid (Oilers), Sidney Crosby (Penguins), and Gabe Landeskog (Avalanche) have all been wearing the C since they were 19, and Jonathan Toews (Blackhawks) has had it since he was 20. The Leafs should send a clear signal to Matthews that they believe he is on par with those stars, both as a player and a leader.

If the team wants to name a captain this year without playing favorites between Matthews and Tavares, they could stick it on the 38-year-old Marleau, who’s seen and done everything in the NHL except win a cup.

Maple Leafs Trade and Transaction Odds

Many Leaf fans are anxious for new GM Kyle Dubas to improve the situation on the backend. Nylander and Marner would fetch the biggest hauls on the trade market, but the entire league witnessed the perils of trading an elite forward for a perceived shutdown defenseman when the Oilers dealt Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson. Dubas will likely retain his young studs — Marner, in particular, who doesn’t become an RFA until 2020 — and bolster the defense corps through other means.

Kadri is an extremely valuable trade chip, himself. The two-time 30-goal-scorer has developed into a bona fide two-way center on the Leafs’ third-line. Signed through 2022 on a relatively team-friendly deal ($4.5 million per year), Dubas could certainly parlay Kadri into a top-four defenseman, but whether that piece would be more valuable than what Kadri brings is debatable.