John Tavares Finally off the Island and onto the Big Stage of Playoff Stardom

Everyone saw the talent and the promise. It's why he was given the nickname of "The Next One" as a junior phenomenon. Whether John Tavares had the kind of work ethic—the thing that usually separates the good from the great in the long run—was the question when he entered the NHL as the No. 1 pick in 2009.

Nearly seven years later, the questions about work have been answered. And so, too, have the ones centering on leadership.

At least, they were for one former player-turned-analyst Ray Ferraro, who, along with broadcast partner Chris Cuthbert, met with Tavares before an April 24 Isles playoff game with Florida.

"I don't know John. I've met him just a couple of times," said Ferraro, the former NHL forward and Islander. "But when we walked away, I said to Chris, 'Oh my god, this kid is impressive.' His maturity, his overall view of what was going on—it was really, really impressive to talk to him."

This was before Tavares went out and scored the two biggest goals in the last 23 years of Islanders history. This was before the Isles captain sent Game 6 of New York's first-round series with the Florida Panthers to overtime with a goal in the final minute of regulation, then won it in double overtime to give the team its first playoff series victory since the 1993 team for which Ferraro played.

This was before Tavares, rather than pat himself on the back, saluted Islanders fans with his first comments after the game.

"First and foremost for our fanbase, they have been dying for this," Tavares told the Associated Press (via NorthJersey.com). "No question, a lot of us haven't been here that long, but some of us have been here a while. ... It's time we had to get over this hump and push forward."

After several years of personal ups and downs and mostly frustration team-wise, Tavares is right where most who saw him as a youngster thought he'd be someday: at, or near, the top of the professional hockey world.

The Islanders remain something of an underdog to play for their first Stanley Cup since the dynasty days of the early 1980s, but with the leadership on and off the ice that Tavares is displaying right now, anything seems possible.

Tavares, who has six goals and 11 points through nine postseason games, helped lead the Islanders to a 5-3 victory over Tampa Bay in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series with a goal and an assist. He was held scoreless, however, in Games 2 and 3, and the Islanders enter Friday's Game 4 once again looking to their captain to lead the way out of a 2-1 series deficit.

"The late [legendary Islanders coach] Al Arbour early on always told me this guy had a very high hockey IQ," Hockey Hall of Fame coach Scotty Bowman said last week. "He said if he improved his speed a little bit, he would be great. He seems to be bearing that out."

Game 6 against the Panthers was Tavares' real New York coming-out party. His game-tying goal in the final minute was the kind of clutch play that legends are made of, but the double-OT wraparound score on Roberto Luongo really blew the lid off the place.

"He's not super fast, but how quickly he went from one side of the net to the other, that's all edge work and power in your legs to beat everybody around the net to the other post," Ferraro said. "Because once he starts going behind the net, the whole rink knows where he's trying to go. He just got there first."

Skating used to be considered Tavares' lone potential weakness, but after getting to the NHL as the No. 1 overall pick in 2009, the 25-year-old native of Mississauga, Ontario, has worked hard to improve it.

According to NHL.com's Dan Rosen, Tavares enlisted the services of Toronto-area power-skating coach Dawn Braid to correct a flaw in his skating known as being a "railroader"—with the feet too far apart and strides that are too hippety-hoppety from side to side.

Tavares now has a longer, smoother stride that better utilizes the power in his thighs.

The fact that Tavares worked even harder to better his game, despite having a hugely hyped junior career that saw him get drafted into the Ontario Hockey League as a 14-year-old with "exceptional player" status, hardly surprises his first junior coach with the Oshawa Generals, Chris DePiero.

"He was our best player, by far, when I coached him. But he was also our hardest-working player," said DePiero, who coached Oshawa from 2006 to 2012 and is now the athletic director at St. Michael's College School in Toronto. "It doesn't always go like that with your most talented players. But John was just so focused and determined about what he wanted to do, where he wanted to go. I used to have a saying: 'Don't just say you played, be a player.' And John just always wanted to be a player, the guy who was going to be the difference out there."

Still, this season easily could have finished as a disappointment for Tavares and the Islanders. New York slumped in the second half and had to fight to just make the playoffs. Tavares' numbers were down from 2014-15, a season in which he finished as a Hart Trophy finalist.

Though he did play four fewer games than last year, Tavares' point total dropped from 86 to 70, and his goal total fell from 38 to 33. His Corsi percentage, while still good at 57.7, was down from 61.0.

While he's a bona-fide star in the league, he still has yet to become a true household name, especially in the U.S. Tavares didn't even crack the top 10 in hockey jersey sales last year, as compiled by the NHL.

"There were a couple of bumpy stretches for him and the team this year," said Islanders television analyst and Hall of Famer Butch Goring, who won four straight Stanley Cups with the team from 1980 to 1983. "But there was never any doubting John's work ethic, and his commitment to his teammates as the captain.

"And you saw what kind of effort he gave when the chips were down in [Game 6 against Florida]. That really did a lot for the franchise, I believe. I'm not sure it can ever get as loud as it once did in the [Nassau] Coliseum, but it was loud in that place Sunday. He made it happen there at the end. John just always wants to be better."

The question remains: Can Tavares become a Stanley Cup champion? Can he be known as the best player in the game?

Mike Carlson/Getty Images

"I don't know if John will be that dynamic," Ferraro said. "Like, when [Sidney Crosby] skates, the whole building stands up, and you have to notice. It's not like that with John. I think John is evolving and will evolve into one of the game's best two-way players. So that puts him more in the ballpark, if you will, of a [Jonathan] Toews or a [Patrice] Bergeron. I think—well, I don't think, I know—that John is more skilled than Toews or Bergeron. I think he can be a higher-point-producing player of that ilk."

Said former NHL defenseman Chris Therien, now a television analyst for the Philadelphia Flyers: "He is extremely competitive with the puck and is as good a passer as anybody in the league. In a league with just a handful of superstars, he is without doubt one of them."

With each successive Islanders playoff win, with each additional outstanding individual performance, Tavares gets closer to becoming that household name. He hasn't gotten there yet.

But he's working on it.

Advanced stats courtesy of Hockey-Reference.com.

Adrian Dater covers the NHL for Bleacher Report.