John Tavares the Quiet Superstar Is Ready for a Bigger Stage for NY Islanders

UNIONDALE, N.Y. — He had one of the biggest buildups in junior hockey history, with one of those #LoseforThePotentialSavior Twitter hashtag movements to which Connor McDavid can now relate.

The New York Islanders were the lucky losers of 2009, landing John Tavares with the first overall pick of the draft. As we know now, six years later, they may have hit the lottery with him but have yet to hit the jackpot.

The odds of the latter happening got mathematically better Wednesday night. Tavares scored no goals in the Islanders' 4-1 victory over the host Washington Capitals, but he probably made the biggest play of the night. In a tie game early in the second period, the 24-year-old center won a faceoff from the left dot, sending the puck right back to teammate Ryan Strome, who then beat Caps goalie Braden Holtby with a screened shot to the far post for what proved the game-winner.

After the game, though, Tavares was as vanilla as anything ever served at Dairy Queen. His summation of Game 1 to Islanders beat writer Arthur Staple for Newsday was the following: "Any time you're able to take the first one you want to build on it. It was a good start for us. Now it's on to Game 2."

This is the Tavares style of things. He does not want to be Walt Frazier, Joe Namath, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson or any big New York sports star of the past. He verbally stick-handles right past the question of whether he wants more media attention and/or endorsements or his face on the wrapping of a candy bar. 

“I don’t pay any attention to that stuff. I just try to play. I enjoy playing, and I enjoy playing for this team,” Tavares told Bleacher Report.

He will gladly take the added interview requests if it means the Islanders, who had their best season since 1983-84, are more of a big story. Game 1 made them a bigger story.

Can Tavares, despite his shyness of the bright lights, still be the biggest star of New York and in hockey? Can he surpass the two forwards who are generally considered to be the top stars of the league in Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby?

Against Ovechkin, at least, he's off to a nice start. Let's take a look at the regular-season numbers.

Tavares was the second-leading scorer overall with 86 points, one behind Dallas' Jamie Benn. He was the fourth-leading goal scorer, at 38, behind Ovechkin (53), Steven Stamkos (43) and Rick Nash (42). If he can lead the Islanders to a win in this series, it will be New York's first since...wow...1992-93.

Tom Mihalek/Associated Press

The Islanders now have home-ice advantage the rest of the series, and let's all take a knee for the soon-to-come vacation of the old barn that is Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The Islanders will play at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn next season. An extended postseason would be a nice present to the hardy bunch of Uniondale loyalists who stuck with the Islanders through more than three decades mostly filled with futility.

“Obviously, we just want to play well and give them a great effort anytime we play in this building,” Tavares said. “Certainly, you want to make it a memorable last season and do some great things. But at the same time, it’s a process and one day at a time and you try to not look too much at the big picture. We just want to make sure we’re playing hard every night and getting better.”

After he suffered a serious knee injury at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, some worried how he would play this season. It takes a full year, the saying goes, for a player to really recover from a bad knee injury. Tavares put that bromide to shame with a strong season, finishing as one of the top offensive players in the league while playing all 82 games.

“He’s been real good, no drop-off in speed,” former Islander and current TV analyst Butch Goring said. “Maybe some of the timing took a little while, but he works so hard that there haven’t been any issues with his game.”

Tom Mihalek/Associated Press

Tavares has never been part of any off-ice scandal and has received good press during most of his hockey-playing life. But some around him say his family was always hesitant to allow media to pry much into his personal life, starting when he was a teenage phenom growing up in Mississauga, Ontario. It probably explains why Tavares remains, while polite, somewhat guarded about what he says.

That doesn’t mean he is always that way behind the closed doors of the dressing room.

Kathy Kmonicek/Associated Press

“He’s got a fun-loving side, for sure,” said Islanders defenseman Travis Hamonic, who currently is sidelined with a lower-body injury. “He likes to chirp a little to guys, and he’s got a dry sense of humor. He’s very smart.

"The biggest thing about John, though, is he just wants to be one of the guys. He knows he’s a huge player for us and knows he’s our team leader, but it’s real important for him to not put himself above anyone else. That’s why guys in this room respect him so much. He probably is a little quieter with you guys because of that, but nobody in this room would begrudge him any big headlines about him or whatever. I mean, he deserves more press than he gets, I think.”

Tavares is fine without it. Well, then again, he’ll take one for the team if it means the kind of success for the Islanders he craves.

“The more you can talk about winning, the better. That’s all we want here,” he said.

Adrian Dater has covered the NHL since 1995. Follow him @Adater.