Toronto Maple Leafs center John Tavares scored his 400th career NHL goal in Tuesday evening’s game versus the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Tavares beat Penguins’ goaltender Casey DeSmith with a wrist shot from the blue line to give Toronto a 3-2 lead in the second period.
With the goal, the 32-year-old Mississauga native becomes the 107th player in NHL history to reach the 400 goal milestone. He is also the fifth player in Maple Leafs history to record his 400th career goal with the team and first since Mats Sundin did it on Oct. 14, 2002, also against the Penguins.
Tavares scored his first career goal against the Penguins on October 3, 2009 and tallied his 400th goal against on Tuesday night.
He scored 272 goals with the New York Islanders and now has 128 goals with Toronto.
Check out the goal below.
1st career goal vs. Pittsburgh | 400th career goal vs. Pittsburgh
John Tavares' (@91Tavares) fantastic start to the season continues! pic.twitter.com/kiJqKHaZ06
— NHL (@NHL) November 16, 2022
Tavares scoring at 40-goal pace through 17 games
The milestone may have been weighing on Tavares, who had been without a goal in his previous three games.
“It’s nice to just get it and move past it, to be honest,” Tavares told TSN’s Mark Masters during a first intermission interview.
Tavares’ goal gives him a team-high nine goals this season and he ranks second on the team in points behind only Mitch Marner.
With nine goals and nine assists in 17 games, Tavares is scoring at a 40-goal pace for the first time since the 2017-18 season. That year, he scored 47 goals in his first season with the Leafs.
At this rate, Tavares is on pace for a 43-goal campaign, which would be his second-best in a Leafs’ uniform.
The former No. 1 overall pick signed a 7-year deal with the Leafs in 2018 that will pay him $11 million per year until the end of the 2024-25 season.
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