It couldn’t have been scripted better.
John Tavares was back playing against the New York Islanders, the team he captained from 2013 to 2018 when he signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
He was two points shy of reaching the magical 1,000-point mark, and it couldn’t have happened in a more dramatic way.
Toronto goalie Ilya Samsonov described it best postgame.
“Against ex-team, this looks awesome, yeah?” Samsonov said. “You see it just in the movie probably. Just to see in real life, we’re so excited for him.”
Tavares scored the goal to cut the Islanders’ lead to 1, making it a 3-2 game in the second period.
But the Maple Leafs captain wasn’t done for the night, as he positioned himself in front of the Islanders goalie with just seconds to go.
William Nylander took a desperation shot that got a piece of Tavares and onto the blade of Morgan Reilly, who tied the game 3-3 with just 6.7 seconds remaining.
Against his old team, Tavares became the 98th player in NHL history with 1,000 career points. The players on the ice immediately realized how special it was.
According to Sportsnet, some Leafs players had been informed pre-game that if Tavares were to reach the milestone, the team had an okay from the league to clear the bench. But everyone who knew about it, the team’s leaders, was on the ice during the 6-on-5, so they had to wave to their teammates.
Eventually, everyone came onto the ice, swarming Tavares in hugs.
“It was just joy,” Morgan Rielly said. “Just overwhelming happiness; and it was a big point in the game.”
But it was special in more ways. The Maple Leafs had a fathers’ trip, which meant his father, Joe, was in the crowd. His reaction to watching his son record his 1,000th NHL point was incredible.
Joe couldn’t stop smiling, jumping, and first punching in his celebrations, which lasted for seconds.
“On the fathers’ trip with his dad in the crowd, I mean, it’s tough to write a better script,” Auston Matthews said.
The video of Joe Tavares celebrating in the crowd quickly went viral, and it’s one of those moments that Leafs fans will cherish for a long time.
“Yeah, really special. Just everything you go through, through childhood, adolescence, and obviously, living a dream playing in the NHL, [reaching 1,000] in a place that I spent nine years of my life, family, and my dad coming down here to visit, being a big part of that,” Tavares said.
“Having him here was tremendous, especially [because] he wasn’t there for a lot of my minor hockey days,” he added about his father, who often worked in the family’s roofing business when John grew up.
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