Dater Column: Tomas Tatar Signing Another Potential Steal For Avalanche

He's a good player, with 20 or more goals seven times in career

The first thing I was surprised about when looking at Tomas Tatar’s career bio: the fact that he’s only 32. It seems like he’s been around forever. I thought he’d be 36 or 37. This is what happens when you don’t cover a player, until they get traded to your team; you really don’t know much about them.

Tomas Tatar has been in the NHL since 2010. He was taken by Detroit 60th overall in the 2009 NHL draft with Detroit, and he scored 20 or more goals for the Red Wings, Vegas Golden Knights and Montreal Canadiens from 2014-20. He has almost won a Stanley Cup, with Vegas in 2018.

And a lot of people will tell you, Tatar’s horrible playoff scoring numbers were part of that problem for Vegas. He had one goal and one asssist for Vegas in the 2018 playoffs. In his career, Tatar has 13 points (seven goals) in 52 playoff games. He had one goal and zero assists for the New Jersey Devils in 12 playoff games this past spring.

His regular-season numbers (455 points in 783 games) are pretty good. The playoff numbers are terrible.