6 Offseason Free-agent Landing Spots for Maple Leafs Center John Tavares

The potential top two unrestricted free agents in the summer of 2025 currently play for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

While most of the attention has centered on forward Mitch Marner due to his combination of elite production and still at a prime age, John Tavares is also an intriguing player who could be hitting the market.

Even though Tavares is in his age-34 season, he remains a top-line scorer.

Through Tuesday's action, he is averaging a point per game, has already scored 30 goals for the second time in the past three seasons and can still help drive an offense.

But where will he be playing next season?

Age might scare some teams off, but he should still figure to be a highly sought-after player on the open market.

Let's look at six potential landing spots for him as the 2024-25 regular season winds down.

This would probably be largely dependent on what, if anything, the Maple Leafs do in the playoffs and what sort of contract demands Tavares has (not to mention what they end up doing with Marner and his costs).

But sometimes the most logical answer with pending free agents is staying in the exact spot where they already are. Teams do not usually let productive players get away, and playing for Toronto was something that was very important to Tavares when he initially signed there. 

He is also still really good, and it is unlikely the Maple Leafs would find an immediate upgrade on the free-agent market. 

Having said that, if they bow out early in the playoffs again, they are going to have to start to seriously consider some sort of major change to their core.

Could that mean letting one of Tavares or Marner go? Or both? That remains to be seen, but the pressure is going to be on all of these guys in a couple of weeks. 

The New York Rangers are going to have to do some soul-searching this offseason to figure out where this season went wrong and why the team has reached a plateau without getting over the hump. 

There are problems. Many of them. And all of them significant. 

They are unlikely to start tearing everything down, but it is not hard to imagine them making some sort of a major change at center. Especially after Mika Zibanejad’s disappointing 2024-25 campaign.

They need more consistency and production from that spot, and Tavares seems like the type of free agent the Rangers would go after: a big-name player who is also toward the end of their career. 

It is, quite honestly, vintage Rangers. 

It might also not be the worst idea if the price was right and there wasn't too much term.

Finding a capable and consistent No. 2 center has been a constant problem for the Colorado Avalanche ever since they lost Nazem Kadri in free agency a few years ago.

They attempted to fix it a year ago by trading for Casey Mittelstadt, but that did not work out as planned.

At this year’s deadline, they acquired both Brock Nelson and Charlie Coyle (in exchange for Mittelstadt) in the hopes they can get more out of the position once they get beyond Nathan MacKinnon.

Nelson has been the far more productive addition, but he is a pending unrestricted free agent after this season. While Coyle remains under contract, his play has not been what a Stanley Cup contender would want from a second-line center, and that was the case throughout his time in Boston in recent years before the trade.

He might work well as a third-line center, but they still need another scorer in the middle.

Tavares would be the best possible scoring option they could have at center on the open market, and Colorado might be an attractive option for Tavares if he is still searching for his first Stanley Cup this offseason. 

This season has been a bitter disappointment for the Canucks, and they are going to need to make some big changes this offseason to get back to the playoffs next year.

They still have a No. 1 center in Elias Pettersson, but after trading J.T. Miller to the New York Rangers before the trade deadline, they have another big need down the middle. Especially after Filip Chytil (one of the key pieces they received in the Miller trade) has had his 2024-25 season prematurely ended due to another head injury. 

His short- and long-term future with the team and the league is in some doubt. 

That could open the door for the Canucks to be players in free agency.

Just based on 2024-25 numbers, Tavares would easily be the most productive player on the Canucks and give them a legitimate No. 2 center option behind Pettersson.

The Montreal Canadiens are going to be a fascinating team to follow this offseason.

They are on track to make the playoffs this season, and their young core is only going to get better with the arrival of 2024 No. 5 overall pick Ivan Demidov.

There's a lot to like about this team and its future, but it still has some issues that need to be ironed out before it becomes a serious contender.

One of those issues is a second-line scoring center.

Tavares would be a great fit behind Nick Suzuki and would also provide a young, up-and-coming team with an additional veteran presence. It would also allow Jake Evans to settle into more of a third-line role, where he is perhaps best suited. 

Signing Tavares would not only annoy the fans of Montreal’s biggest rival, but it would also weaken that rival's lineup. It's a win on multiple levels.

The Boston Bruins not only took a major step backwards during the 2024-25 season and missed the playoffs, but they also ended up being one of the worst teams in the NHL.

Injuries to defensemen Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm did not help, nor did an unexpected down year from starting goalie Jeremy Swayman.

But even with those issues, this was always going to be a badly flawed team with one major hole in its lineup: the lack of a No. 1 scoring center. 

It has been a problem ever since Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci retired, and their decision to sign Elias Lindholm to a seven-year $50 million contract in free agency did not fix it. 

The question the Bruins have to ask is: Do they hit the reset button and accept a re-tooling or rebuild, or do they try to bounce back and make some short-term, immediate changes?

If they choose the latter path, Tavares could be an intriguing option and perhaps the best option in free agency as far as top-line scoring centers go.