John Tavares and the London Knights are in OHL action tonight, hosting the Saginaw Spirit.
Going into the weekend, Tavares has 215 career goals in the OHL, more than other player has ever accumulated.
With two games to play this weekend, Tavares could boost his totals.
Or the Knights, with nowhere to go in the Western Conference standings, may elect to reduce his playing time to insure he’s fully ready to compete in the playoffs.
Regardless, the scoring accomplishment by Tavares is tremedndous and worthy of the amount of talk it has generated.
His goals last weekend, allowed him to bypass the career mark established by Peter Lee in the mid 1970’s for the Ottawa 67’s.
Being the only player in more than 30 years to bypass Lee, speaks volumes about both of them.
Next, while highly, highly unlikely, Tavares could play up two more OHL seasons and if he did, wow, that would be a virtually unbreakable goal scoring record.
But Tavares has a professional attitude & goal.
He’ll be selected first, or at least very high, at the NHL Entry Draft this year in Montreal.
Because of his scoring abilities, he’s a good bet to be an NHL’er next season and because he’s already served 4 years in the Canadian Hockey League, he’s also eligible for the American Hockey League next year, so returning to London seems like an exceptionally doubtful scenario.
So, John Tavares has the Ontario Hockey League career goals record, bypassing Peter Lee.
What remains to be seen is whether the professional career of John Tavares will be far more illustrious than that of Peter Lee.
I’m Fred Wallace