SIMMONS SAYS: Next Tavares contract ought to be more friendly to Leafs

Article content

For the past seven years, Connor McDavid has been the highest-paid player in the National Hockey League.

In those seven seasons, combined, he has produced more points than anyone else in hockey, not just in the regular season but more points in the post-season as well.

That’s what you call value spending.

For the past seven years, John Tavares, at $11 million per season, has been the second highest paid player overall in the NHL. He has been paid $77 million for his time with the Maple Leafs.

In those seven seasons, he has been the 24th highest scorer, 16th in goals scored, 38th in assists during the regular season, reasonable numbers all of them.

What hasn’t been so reasonable: Tavares ranks 90th overall in hockey in playoff scoring since he came to the Leafs.

That’s not what you call value spending.

You can make the case that Tavares was paid $77 million for around $55 million worth of production.

And now, Tavares hits free agency at the end of the month and it’s clear he wants to stay with the Leafs and it’s pretty clear the Leafs want him to stay.

But the question is, for how long and how much money? He is a diminishing asset, as are most veteran athletes. He has been overpaid in his previous contract for all he produced. The Leafs should factor in a discount price for the future, based on how much they’ve already paid Tavares and how much they’ve changed his life, while he hasn’t changed theirs.

I wouldn’t give him a dollar more than $4 million a season now and I’m not sure I would offer three years if I was in charge. Which means it’s a good thing I’m not in charge.

Tavares has more than made his money from the Maple Leafs. It’s now time for the payroll scales to balance out.

THIS AND THAT

The best of them become the sounds of the city and the soundtrack of their teams and of our lives. Part of the history. Part of the fabric. What do the Maple Leafs sound like? They sound like Joe Bowen. Loud and brash and expressive. And so full of the excitement of life. And now, just one final season to enjoy the historic play-by-play man, who has chosen to step away. The separation for either side, for us, for him, won’t come easily … Brendan Shanahan made some mistakes in his years running the Leafs but one that he could have easily corrected was this: The Leafs and local radio stations pulled Bowen and partner Jim Ralph off the road years ago. They broadcast Leafs games from a studio. It was cheap and unnecessary business then and it remains cheap and unnecessary business now. New MLSE chief Keith Pelley, a broadcaster by trade, should do the right thing here and make sure Bowen and Ralph are travelling with the team for their final season together on radio. That wouldn’t make up for the insult of the past but it would make the final season a lot more palatable … A condensed list of all-time great goaltenders who have never won the Hart Trophy but whose names are on the Stanley Cup: Andrei Vasilevskiy, Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur, Ken Dryden, Grant Fuhr, Terry Sawchuk, Glenn Hall, Tony Esposito, Bernie Parent, Jacques Plante, and Johnny Bower. Connor Hellebuyck is this year’s MVP of the NHL. Much as I don’t see it that way, the voters have spoken. On my Hart Trophy ballot, Hellebuyck was listed fourth of five, behind Nikita Kucherov, Leon Draisaitl and Nathan MacKinnon and ahead of Jack Eichel. The NHL would have looked better the other day had one of Kucherov or Draisaitl been selected MVP … The NHL players, by the way, voted Kucherov their player of the year … It wasn’t exactly big news when it was reported that Mitch Marner and the Leafs are going their separate ways. All you had to do was listen to Marner on locker cleanout day, with him talking in the past tense, to understand what was happening … In free agency, Marner is expected to be paid more than Draisaitl’s $14 million a year, which is hockey economics at its absolute most distorted. That number would make Marner the highest paid player in hockey until McDavid signs his new deal in Edmonton. By my very unofficial count of players that I would select ahead of Marner, assuming every player was available, he ranks somewhere between the 18th and 21st best player in the game … It’s tough to determine the relative worth of pending free agent Brad Marchand. At the end of the 4 Nations tournament in February, Marchand seemed like an afterthought, playing 11 minutes a game for Team Canada, not contributing much at all. There was some doubt then — a lot of it — as to whether he would be asked to play for Canada this February at the Olympics. Now the narrative has changed. The 37-year-old has been a dominant performer for the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Only four players in the playoffs have scored more goals than Marchand. So which Marchand are you buying in free agency? The playoff Marchand, or the 4 Nations Marchand? Someone will pay him $8 million a year and maybe for as many as four years. That somebody, whomever it is, might regret the signing a year or two from now. The clock remains undefeated … That said, I would want Jonathan Toews on my team. No matter what team. No matter what league. If you want to change your DNA, you bring in a career winner such as Toews, even if he is the same age as Marchand.

HEAR AND THERE

What are the odds of this happening in any NBA championship series? The key matchup being league MVP, born in Toronto, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, being covered aggressively by Andrew Nembhard, he of Aurora, Ont. … And the primary defender for SGA’s Oklahoma City team is Montreal’s Lu Dort, while the off-the-bench dynamic scorer for Indiana is Ben Mathurin of Montreal. This is the most Canadian NBA Finals ever. And now it’s down to the a best-of-three. One part of me wants Gilgeous-Alexander to win, just to complete the season and the story. One part of me wants Nembhard, who went to high school a mile or two from my house, and the former Raptor, Pascal Siakam to win, because of proximity and their Toronto history … After 25 games this NBA season, the Pacers were 10-15. The Raptors were 7-18. The emergence of the Pacers gives everybody in the NBA hope for playoff success … New Canadian national team coach Gordon Herbert could have a roster for the Los Angeles Olympics that includes SGA, Dort, Nembhard, Mathurin, RJ Barrett, Zach Edey, Jamal Murray, Dillon Brooks, Shaedon Sharpe, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and who knows, maybe a 33-year-old Andrew Wiggins. Size aside, that’s a pretty awesome lineup … Siakam was the perfect second option scorer in Toronto. It was only when he was the first option, it didn’t work so well. He’s clearly the second-best player on his team to Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton in the Finals … The best part of the NBA Finals, Canadians aside, is the style of game. It’s less about hitting threes and a lot more about old style, defence, mid-range shooting, not analytic-driven basketball.

SCENE AND HEARD

This is not just a hot streak. This is now two magical months for Alejandro Kirk. Entering play Saturday, he was hitting .447 in June after .365 in May. He’s hitting .392 since the beginning of May. Those are Ted Williams numbers. Those are John Olerud 1993 numbers. This coming after he hit .253 last season and .250 the year before that … The better Kirk hits, the less pressure there is on Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to deliver. As of Saturday afternoon, Guerrero Jr. ranked 46th in home runs in the American League, 45th in RBI, 9th in runs scored, 10th in on-base percentage, 24th in OPS and 26th in WAR. Not good enough … By a salary comparison and a lot more, Shohei Ohtani in the National League leads in home runs, runs scored, OPS and slugging, and is second in WAR … Blue Jays venerable general manager Ross Atkins has been on record as saying that home runs in baseball are overrated. Perhaps he is correct. But the evidence from his own team goes the other way. The Jays were 12-3 in their past 15 games entering play Saturday, having hit 22 home runs in those 12 victories. They were 10-3 in games in which they have hit two home runs … There are great major league hitters who will tell you straight up that hitting coaches don’t matter a lot. And there are great major league hitters who swear by — not at — those who coach them. It depends on the team and the circumstances. But if you study the Yankees approach, taking more pitches than anyone else, walking more than anyone else, leading in runs scored, home runs, total bases, batting average, on-base, slugging percentage and OPS — without an awesome lineup — you have to trust in the process. The hitting coach is James Rowson, who worked under Don Mattingly in Miami.

AND ANOTHER THING

How many of her own world records will Summer McIntosh break between now and the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles? She still is just 18 years old, turns 19 in August. She will be 21 in time for the 2028 Games … Jamie Kompon has Stanley Cup rings from the Chicago Blackhawks and the Florida Panthers. Why is it the Florida lead assistant never gets mentioned for head coaching possibilities around the NHL? … Under the department of really bad ideas: Further expanding the NHL and believing it will work in Atlanta. A reminder: when the Flames and Thrashers left Atlanta without any kind of emotional farewell, it was because they couldn’t find local ownership willing to keep the team in Georgia. An NHL move to Atlanta would be nothing more than a money grab not something that would make the league better or stronger … For five hours and 29 minutes last Sunday, Carlos Alcaraz battled Jannik Sinner in the men’s singles final of the French Open. On a really busy night, an NHL player plays 30-plus minutes, an NBA player plays 42 minutes, a pro soccer player plays 90. Alcaraz played Sinner for 329 minutes. I’m exhausted just writing about it … The Maple Leafs have every intention of signing Matthew Knies, and he has every intention of signing with the Leafs, but as of the weekend, the two sides were struggling to find common ground on term and price … Before they had a name, Sarah Nurse was the face of the Toronto PWHL team. Now they are the Sceptres and Nurse is now the smiling face of the Vancouver expansion franchise … When Bill Zito took over as general manager of the Panthers, he inherited a goalie in Sergei Bobrovsky, a defenceman in Aaron Ekblad, a first line centre in Sasha Barkov, a scoring winger in Jonathan Huberdeau and a Stanley Cup winning coach in Joel Quenneville. When Kyle Dubas took over as general manager of the Maple Leafs, he had Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and Morgan Rielly and a Stanley Cup winning coach in Mike Babcock. Within a year or so, Zito traded for Sam Bennett and Matthew Tkachuk, hired Paul Maurice to coach, added Gustav Forsling and Niko Mikkola on defence, reconfigured the entire way the Panthers play and approach the game. How much does a general manager mean to the success of a hockey team? In this case, he means everything. If he doesn’t trade for Bennett, if he doesn’t trade for Tkachuk, if he doesn’t hire Maurice, if he doesn’t claim Forsling on waivers, there is no semi-dynasty to talk about … Last summer, the New York Rangers were trying to move captain Jacob Trouba and longtime winger and scorer Chris Kreider. Now they have sent both of them to Anaheim, where GM Pat Verbeek is trying to build the Ducks into a contender. Verbeek has hired a great coach in the returning Quenneville. Whether Trouba and Kreider will help or hurt in the short term is anyone’s guess but you can understand why someone who played the way Verbeek did would want physical players such as Trouba and Kreider as part of his lineup … Verbeek would have been a perfect Florida Panther … Happy birthday to RJ Barrett (25), Bobby McMann (29), Steffi Graf (56), Dusty Baker (76), Wade Boggs (67), Bobby Witt Jr. (25), Sheldon Kennedy (56), Sami Kapanen (52), Andrew Cogliano (38), Andy Pettitte (53), Cooper Kupp (32) and Zan Tabak (55) … And hey, whatever became of Kerwin Bell?

ssimmons@postmedia.com

x.com/simmonssteve