New York Islanders John Tavares On Pace For Special Year

New York Islanders captain John Tavares is once again proving that he’s one of the better players in the league. His output so far in this young season has him on pace for a special year. And based on his career these pace stats are quite indicative.

After his first 12 games in the 2017-18 NHL season, New York Islanders captain John Tavares has 15 points. With eleven goals and four assists, Tavares is matching his output from the lockout-shortened year of 2012-13. A year where he finished third in voting for the Hart Memorial Trophy.

Since 2011-12, Tavares has had a number of hot starts. His lowest being just last year where he recorded ten points from his opening 12. Add to that another two 15 point starts and a 14 point start in 2014-15 where he finished with 86 points.

And look, his first two years in the league, where he started with nine points weren’t bad either. He’d go on to finish with 54 and 67 points. Great returns for a rookie and sophomore season.

Just look at those pace stats after his first twelve games and what he actually finished the year off with.  On average his pace stats from the first 12 games were off by 6.375 points if you don’t consider that 59 game season cut short due to an Olympics related injury.

Through his first twelve games this season, Tavares is on pace for 103 points. One-hundred and three points. But as I’m sure you’re thinking, 12 games is a small sample size. And that’s true. Over an 82 game season that’s about 15% of the year with 85% left to go. Still lots of hockey to go.

Keeping the Pace

The key will be to keep that pace up. So is Tavares the type of player to start hot and then flame out as the season moves into November? Judging by his next 12 games the answer is no.

What Tavares does in his next twelve games is going to be quite indicative of what he can produce for the remainder of the NHL season. Because judging by his history, whatever he’s on pace for after game 24 is a great indication of his actual end of year haul. Assuming he stays healthy.

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That might sound like a “not-an-actual-answer” answer. But it is. Just look at how his pace stats after 24 games start to get pretty close to what he ends the season with. And it’s only been getting better since his first two years in the NHL.

Take those first two seasons out of the equation and Tavares averages 4.8 points off his pace. That’s somewhere around 98-108 points. Crazy. Too crazy in fact.

Will Tavares actually put up 108 points this season? It’s possible. If anyone on the New York Islanders roster can do it, it’s certainly him. But I think we all feel like he’s going to cool off in November. Not drastically. But at the very least within the 88-98 point range.

Next: Isles 3 Stars In October 2017

What he does through the month of November will tell us what he’s capable of doing come game 82. And if he can keep that 1.25 points per game pace, we’ll be looking at one heck of a special year from John Tavares. Like a multiple trophy type of special year.