Is John Tavares a Hall of Famer?

Credit: Luther Schlaifer-Imagn Images

John Tavares and the Toronto Maple Leafs are a lightning rod for criticism, praise, and public opinion.

Overrated. Underrated. Nauseated. It’s life in the fast lane of hockey’s most scrutinized market. It’s the life the 34-year-old chose and has fully embraced since his fateful free-agent decision in 2018.

Beyond the hype, noise, hurt feelings on Long Island and 58-year Stanley Cup drought in his hometown, there’s an athlete. A respected one. A diligent one. A puck hound who’s used his elite mind, hands and work ethic to offset second-rate footspeed. A teenage prodigy. A player who’s no longer captain of the team famously emblazoned on his childhood bedsheets.

Unburdened by the ‘C’ on his sweater in the final season of his seven-year deal, Tavares is on pace for 37 goals and 78 points in his 16th NHL campaign. To the extent it’s possible for a serious dude in a cold climate, it’s been a Hot Tavares Winter. Today, we’re exploring his intriguing career. All of it. And determining whether the body of work is deserving of a place in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Tavares’ Generation

We’ll start by comparing Tavares to his peers. At age 19, the junior hockey phenom entered an NHL that wouldn’t average six goals per game until his 13th season. An extension of the 1990s Dead Puck Era would cover his entire prime, ensuring his career totals would understate his performance.

But how does Tavares stack up within his generation?

Among players debuting in the decade from 2000 to 2009, only six will score 500 goals. Tavares will soon be one of them, likely early next season. At 34, he’s also a reasonable bet to catch both Kane and Malkin — each older and fading fast as snipers — to finish fourth in goals among his generation.

When it comes to points, Tavares is eighth. He’s a near certainty to finish at least #7 as Giroux is more than two-and-a-half years his senior. Given Tavares debuted in the stingiest offensive decade since the 1960s, his raw numbers mask how elite his production has been. Compared to his peers, we see he’s at the top of the tier below Crosby, Ovechkin, Malkin, Kane, and Stamkos. And he’s still scoring. That’s a Hall of Fame level.

Generations Past

It’s a common sentiment on social media to hear that the Hall’s standards are slipping. That players elected these days ‘were never elite’ or ‘haven’t won anything.’ Both come up sometimes with Tavares, whose career is light on individual hardware and team success in the postseason.

To shed some light, let’s compare him with a handful of bona Hall of Fame fide centers comfortably old enough to have been Tavares’ father.

Each of the five superstars above were inducted in their first or second year of eligibility. Easy choices in their day. Like Tavares, each was a highly touted prospect who played between 15 and 17 NHL seasons. When it comes to era adjusted production, Tavares looks sensational here.

JT averages seven more goals per season than the Hall of Fame quintet, and only Stastny edges him in points pace. Tavares is the only one in the group to ever finish top-five in goals — and he did it three times. And while his top-five assist and point finishes fall short, he was runner-up to Jamie Benn by a single point in 2014-15. Benn added a secondary assist with nine seconds left in the season to snag the Art Ross Trophy from Tavares that year. How might we view Tavares today with that scoring title?

While the above demonstrates that Tavares can hang with past legends, what about hardware?

Trophy Cases

None of the five centers won a major award in their careers. We can debate the Calder as a major award but it’s certainly one of circumstance, a player having no control over who else joins the league in the same year. Stastny, for example, was a seasoned 24-year-old international superstar when he arrived in North America, while Tavares was a fresh-faced teenager as a rookie.

Tavares is the only player with a first-team all-star nod among the group. Incredibly, you have to go back to 1953-54 to find an eligible first-team all-star center (Ken Mosdell) who isn’t a Hall of Famer.

When it comes to the Hart, Tavares is the only two-time MVP finalist above. Every single eligible player in NHL history that’s twice been a finalist for the Hart is inducted into the Hall. Both Tavares’ finalist nods were third-place. But the 2013 vote had him dangerously close to snagging the MVP from peak Ovechkin and Crosby in a photo finish:

Player	Votes	Voting %	1st-Place Votes
1. Alex Ovechkin	1,090	61%	50
2. Sidney Crosby	1,058	59%	46
3. John Tavares	919	51%	38

In best-on-best international action, Tavares (2014 Olympics, 2016 World Cup) joins Hawerchuk as the only player in our sample who went 2-for-2.

For Cup count, only Savard has a ring. But he was goalless in 14 games. Effectively, none of these five players impacted a Cup winner. Neither has Tavares – at least not yet.

When we look at the last eight years of NHL forward inductees – 15 in total – awards and Cup count are not requirements. We’ll consider a major award to be a Hart, Ross, Lindsay, Richard, Smythe, or Selke, with all due respect to the Calder, Byng, and off-ice awards.

Class	Player	Cups	Year-End All-Star	Major Awards	Notes
2024	Pavel Datsyuk	2	1 (C)	3	3x Selke
2024	Jeremy Roenick	0	0	0
2023	Pierre Turgeon	0	0	0
2022	Daniel Alfredsson	0	1 (RW)	0
2022	Daniel Sedin	0	2 (LW)	2	Lindsay, Ross
2022	Henrik Sedin	0	2 (C)	2	Hart, Ross
2020	Marian Hossa	3	1 (RW)	0
2020	Jarome Iginla	0	4 (RW)	4	Lindsay, Ross, 2x Richard
2019	Guy Carbonneau	3	0	3	3x Selke
2019	Martin St. Louis	1	5 (RW)	4	Hart, Lindsay, 2x Ross
2017	Dave Andreychuk	1	0	0
2017	Paul Kariya	0	5 (LW)	0
2017	Mark Recchi	3	1 (RW)	0
2017	Teemu Selanne	1	4 (RW)	3*	Richard, *2x goal leader
2016	Eric Lindros	0	2 (C)	2	Hart, Pearson
		7 Yes, 8 No	11 Yes, 4 No	8 Yes, 7 No

Fewer than half of recent Hall of Fame forwards won a Cup. Most have made a first or second-all-star team, though that’s much more difficult at the center than as a winger. And only 8 of 15 have a major award. Reminder: Tavares was an assist short of a Ross and a few votes shy of a Hart in separate seasons.

The reality?

If the Hall of Fame only included players who won major awards and were key contributors to Stanley Cup teams, there would be few inductees. And we can’t retrofit the Hall to suit a public myth about mandatory hardware. With a 32-team NHL, global player pool, and a handful of players monopolizing awards, the game’s greatest players often don’t get their mitts on trophies.

The Top Producers of All-Time

When we adjust for era to put everyone on a level playing field, here are Tavares’ career totals: 540 goals and 1,205 points. There are only 30 other players in NHL history to reach both marks. 24 of them are eligible for induction. 23 of them are inducted. The exception is Patrick Marleau, who played the most games (1,779) in NHL history and only became eligible in 2024.

Tavares is already in exclusive company. At 34, he remains nearly a point-per-game player and is still climbing all-time lists. He’s irrefutably one of the most consistently productive performers in NHL history.

John Tavares. Stripped of captaincy. Contract walk year. On pace for just second 40 goal season. Will get 500 goals by early next year & has chance at 600 (he's 34)..Hall of Fame. No locker room disruptions (unlike other places)..Leafs 2nd in East to Caps. Props. #shutupandshoot https://t.co/08VAGaS3wd

— BucciOT.Com (@Buccigross) January 8, 2025

Legacy

As captain of the Maple Leafs for six seasons with a single playoff round won, Tavares inevitably wears some of that failure. His 24 points in 38 post-season games in Toronto — a 52-point pace — are underwhelming. His prime, of course, was lost on Islanders‘ teams that made the playoffs just three times in nine years.

When it comes to sportsmanship and character – two of the induction criteria – Tavares is a respected, low-maintenance superstar. A notoriously dogged worker on and off the ice, he’s captained two franchises and earned Byng votes nine times despite making a living in the dirtiest areas on the ice. Since signing with Toronto, he’s adapted his game as a 57.3% faceoff artist while doubling his hit rate as a #2 center.

His junior career is also part of his legacy. In 2005, he became the first player in Canadian Hockey League history to earn exceptional status at 15, paving the way for underage talent at the junior level. He would eventually break the all-time OHL goals record, graduating with a comical 215 in 247 games. Internationally, he was voted by TSN in 2020 as the #19 best player in World Junior Championship history.

A Call to the Hall?

Tavares is a steady, low-key player and personality. He’s the exact type destined to have his brilliance underappreciated. His elite ranking among his generation and his career era adjusted totals identify a player who’s been not only one of the best of his time, but quietly an all-time great player. There’s nothing complicated about Tavares the player and there should be nothing complicated about his Hall of Fame case.

By PPS – my single-digit Hall of Fame worthiness metric – he entered this season at 242 against a standard of 219. With another strong season in progress, JT will continue to rise in PPS. Not that he needs to. A Stanley Cup in his twilight can only help everyone see the obvious… John Tavares is a Hall of Famer.

For all things Hall of Fame, visit adjustedhockey.com; data from Hockey-Reference, NHL.com

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