No Tavares and Stamkos Together on the Maple Leafs
All season, I had this little daydream tucked away in the back of my mind: John Tavares and Steven Stamkos, finally wearing the Maple Leafs jersey at the same time. Two guys who grew up in the GTA, played on the same youth teams, practically grew up in the same rinks… it just felt like there might be a moment where their careers lined up again.
With Nashville stumbling early and the Maple Leafs doing their usual “don’t worry, we’ll figure it out by April” routine, it didn’t seem impossible. A rental reunion. A fun twist. A tiny bit of hockey nostalgia coming to life.
But that fantasy fizzled out pretty fast. The Maple Leafs faded, the Predators surged, and Stamkos went from “maybe available” to “absolutely not.” So that little sugar-plum scenario of Tavares and Stamkos sharing the ice again? Gone. Another ‘would’ve been fun’ idea tossed onto the pile.
Stamkos and Tavares: GTA Kids Who Grew Up in the Same Hockey World.
As someone who covers the Maple Leafs, I love a good “what if” story. And the idea of Stamkos landing in blue and white was just so much fun. Stamkos and Tavares go way back — not as next-door neighbours, but as two Greater Toronto Area (GTA) kids who came up in the same elite youth hockey scene.
Tavares grew up in Mississauga, Stamkos in Unionville/Markham. That’s about 40 minutes apart if you’re driving the 401. They started running into each other on the ice as early as age nine, playing against each other in minor hockey games. One story that’s come up a few times is a game in which Stamkos’ Markham Waxers beat Tavares’ Mississauga Senators 5-3, with both kids scoring hat tricks.
They weren’t best friends growing up, but they were definitely part of the same hockey ecosystem — the GTA’s top AAA and summer-league circuits where all the best players crossed paths.
At the Age of 11, They Played 50 Games on the Same Team and Never Lost in Regulation.
The real connection happened around age 11 when they became teammates on a stacked summer team called the Ontario Blues. That squad went something like 49-0-1 over a couple of seasons and had a bunch of future NHL names on it — Alex Pietrangelo, Michael Del Zotto, and Cody Hodgson. Chris Stamkos (Steven’s dad) and Joe Pietrangelo helped run it. Both boys wore number 19 back then, which is why Stamkos later switched to 91 — no room for two 19s. They’ve talked about those days in interviews over the years, always with a lot of respect for each other.
So yeah, they didn’t grow up on the same street or go to the same school, but they came up in the same hockey world — two big, skilled centres from the same draft class (2009), both carrying their teams as kids. If Stamkos ever did end up in Toronto, it’d be a nice full-circle moment for two guys who were already linked before either of them had an NHL contract.
It’s just not to be this season. That’s pretty clear now. Too bad from my point of view.