{"id":110182,"date":"2021-05-20T20:17:31","date_gmt":"2021-05-21T00:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=110182"},"modified":"2021-05-20T20:17:31","modified_gmt":"2021-05-21T00:17:31","slug":"toronto-maples-leafs-john-tavares-stretcher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/05\/20\/toronto-maples-leafs-john-tavares-stretcher\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Maple Leafs Captain John Tavares Leaves Game On Stretcher"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/05\/20\/nhl-predictions-may-20th-featuring-montreal-canadiens-vs-toronto-maple-leafs\/\" target=\"_self\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/t\/tavarjo01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John Tavares<\/a> suffered an injury against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/canadiens\/\" target=\"_self\">Montreal Canadiens<\/a> that saw him leave the ice on a stretcher. This is simply devastating as the Stanley Cup Playoffs progress.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Awful scene here. The stretcher is out for John Tavares.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/reporterchris\/status\/1395529391862595589?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 20, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Maples Leafs John Tavares Leaves On Stretcher<\/h2>\n<p>Tavares was a key part of Toronto&#8217;s success in 2020-21. The 30-year-old skater posted 19 goals and 50 points in 56 games. He is one of the only Leafs to make it through the entire shortened 56-game season unscathed. Tavares also posted excellent peripheral numbers with a 53.1 percent Corsi For, 2.9 relative Corsi, and a 55.3 percent faceoff win rate. It&#8217;s hard to overstate just how well he works within the team&#8217;s system.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/islanders\/\" target=\"_self\">New York Islanders<\/a> originally drafted Tavares first overall in the 2009 Draft. He produced at a high level from his debut in 2009-10 through 2017-18 before joining the Leafs as a free agent. Overall, the Mississauga native has posted an incredible 364 goals and 819 points in 870 games. He leads his draft class by a wide margin and is one of the league&#8217;s elite talents by almost any current statistical measure.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means For The Future<\/h3>\n<p>This is pure devastation for Leafs fans. The 2020-21 Toronto team is one of the best in hockey. They are expected to compete for a Stanley Cup assuming they are able to defeat a determined rival in Montreal. However, losing Tavares puts a serious obstacle in front of the roster. The team still has plenty of star power, but one of the core pieces may be gone for an extended time.<\/p>\n<p>It will be up to secondary options to step up and prove they can help carry the load. That could mean increased opportunity for either <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/n\/nashri02.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Riley Nash<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kerfoal01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alexander Kerfoot<\/a> in the top-six. One of the must improve on underwhelming regular seasons if this team is to reach its ceiling. On a more serious note, we can only hope that Tavares emerges from this healthy and able to return for the postseason.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"hcsTQCEGR_FfgOClYOp9QQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1232745417\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'hcsTQCEGR_FfgOClYOp9QQ',sig:'ApxMcbzDFyPo2ro2tNHqSieGpRmPkZkVi_YOr-l59Jc=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1232745417',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Toronto Maple Leafs forward John Tavares suffered an injury against the Montreal Canadiens that saw him leave the ice on a stretcher. This is simply devastating as the Stanley Cup Playoffs progress. Awful scene here. The stretcher is out for John Tavares. &mdash; Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) May 20, 2021 Maples Leafs John Tavares Leaves On [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3127,"featured_media":110185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4547,6671,34,4548,18],"tags":[499],"class_list":["post-110182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hockey","category-injuries","category-news","category-nhl","category-leafs","tag-john-tavares"],"modified_by":"Josh Erickson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}