Stamkos has played 128 career playoff games many of them with stacked Tampa teams.
JT has played 75 with the Islanders and Leafs.
#facts
You should at least attempt to do research before you say stupid shit like that.
If Tavares only played 75 career playoff games, it’s probably because he played like shit so often, his teams didn’t advance as often or as far as they should have.
Stamkos, in 2015, led his team to the Final with the super megastar Tyler Johnson. Kucherov was a 65 point, 2nd year player, great in the playoffs, yes, but not yet considered who he is today at that time. Vasilevskiy was the back-up. Point wasn’t even drafted yet. Hedman had less points than Stralman. The next year, Stamkos only played 1 playoff game. His team did not return to the Final without him, despite every other major player still being on the team. They did not return to the Final for many years, despite missing the playoffs entirely one year and getting swept by Columbus after being the #1 team in the NHL. Did they blow up the team? Trade Kucherov? Point? Stamkos? Hedman? Vasilevskiy? Nope. Luckily they didn’t have idiot fans running their best players out of town.
Stamkos’ 50 career playoff goals is only 3 less than Kucherov, 6 more than Point and many more than other guy on the roster during that era. And he did that despite missing nearly two entire playoff runs due to injury.
Can Tavares say he did anything anywhere near that? Since 2018 up to 2025, despite being the 2nd highest paid player in the league for most of that time, Tavares (in his fucking prime) sat behind far younger, more inexperienced players like Marner, Matthews, Nylander and even Rielly in playoff scoring. And -15 too. If you wanted to make the argument that he was the best player on a team that lacked good players (like Sundin) you might have a leg to stand on. But you got nothing but excuses for a piece of shit player who did nothing to live up to the contract and praise he was given. People like you were screaming from the rooftops “look at what he did with garbage players in Long Island, just imagine what he’ll do in Toronto with Matthews, Marner and Nylander, we are spoiled with riches” and look how it all played out. Those same people are now screaming for his return. But they also scream “change, change, change”. You want fake change.
The more you look at the numbers, the more it seems like Matthews is closer to Stamkos than Tavares is because Tavares is absolute dog shit by comparison. Matthews is the 60 goal man, plagued by injuries in the playoffs who requires the team around him to be stacked because he can’t carry it all by himself. Which is fine because most players can’t. Not even McDavid seems to be able to win it all by himself.
Even if your argument was that Stamkos was a passenger (he wasn’t) on stacked teams for 16 years, behind Kucherov, Point, Hedman, Vasilevskiy etc., it holds zero water to expect the Leafs to have Stanley Cup success by bringing Tavares back along as a passenger at 34-40 when they have absolutely nobody who performs like the “stacked” Tampa Bay teams did, to carry him along. Much less, after also letting Marner (the #1 career playoff point producer on this team) walk for nothing and replacing him with spare parts at the bottom of the UFA barrel.
Facts. Will you accept them? Probably not.