Tavares will make millions, not waves
Leafs prepare bait for impact centre, but stars rarely bite
If John Tavares happened to be in the market for career advice this week, this is what any sane person would tell him.
They’d tell him, in a quiet moment before he and agent Pat Brisson were to begin hearing recruiting pitches from a handful of NHL teams including the Maple Leafs in Los Angeles, that under no circumstances should he even consider re-signing with the New York Islanders. They’d point out that he’s got the potential to become the NHL’s free-agent catch of the century; that there’ll never be another moment in his life quite like this, with the hockey world genuflecting at his feet. And as for the warm feelings Tavares no doubt harbours for the only NHL club he’s ever known — the same club that’s been essentially wasting his talents since 2009 — they’d politely inform Tavares that the phenomenon is known as Stockholm Syndrome. The only known cure is escape.
They’d tell Tavares, the man who has scored the fifth-most regular-season goals in the NHL since he arrived in the league, that he has already given the Islanders far too much, specifically nine of the best years of his life, and that the Islanders haven’t come close to returning the love. Anybody who cares about the sport knows it’s a crime that a talent as big as Tavares’s has played precisely 24 career playoff games. Since Tavares came into the league, only five franchises have played less. If one of the best indicators of future performance is past results, returning to the Islanders is the equivalent of banging one’s head against the wall in the hope of curing a headache. Much like the idea of loyalty in pro sports, it’s pure folly.
All that said, we probably know where this thing is headed. Even if someone in Tavares’s life cared for him enough to compassionately tattoo the words “Anybody but the Islanders” on his inner eyelids, Tavares probably wouldn’t blink at re-upping in New York. We’ve seen it too many times to be surprised.
NHL star after NHL star has approached the crossroads that is the chance at free agency, and they’ve promptly chosen familiarity. On Sunday, case in point, John Carlson agreed to an eight-year deal worth $64 million (all dollars U.S.) to stay in Washington, forgoing the opportunity to test the open market as a rare right-handed defenceman with Stanley Cupwinning credentials. Getting rich is getting rich. Choice is choice. Nobody’s suggesting Carlson made a bad one. But in a sport where team-first conformity is essential to the culture, it’s striking how the NHL’s best players mostly make their millions without making waves. It’s become the hockey way.
We saw it a couple of summers ago when Steven Stamkos was so inspired by the idea of rocking his sport’s foundations that, mere hours into his freeagent dalliance, he swiftly returned to his quiet life on Florida’s Gulf Coast, re-signing with the Lightning.
That’s why it’s easy to believe that, no matter how many teams venture to Los Angeles this week to meet with Tavares, the whole show is more likely an exercise in formality than an exploder of expectations.
So why the courtship? Maybe he’s legitimately curious and sufficiently fed up with his franchise’s foibles. Surely there’s at least some pressure from the NHL players’ association for high-profile players to test free-agent waters. This is a league where no player has yet earned the maximum allowable salary of 20 per cent of the salary cap; where even the great Connor McDavid, who signed for something around 16.6 per cent last summer, was made to feel guilty for being too greedy. The union would politely suggest that, as the next man up, Tavares owes it to his fellow players to at least attempt to push the earnings envelope. That’d be the hockey way, too — momentarily making it about yourself in service to the greater good.
There are those who’ve sug- gested Tavares could be enticed to take that $15.9 million on a one-year term — a deal that would allow, say, the Maple Leafs to make hay on their unusually large cap-space surplus in 2018-19 and allow Tavares to see how he likes playing in the centre of the hockey universe. But given the Islanders have reportedly tabled a standing offer worth $88 million over eight years, no player agent in this universe would advise a client to pass on a guaranteed $72 million.
More plausible is the idea that the Leafs attempt to sell Tavares on a seven-year deal and find a way to make the cap situation work down the road, even if it’ll get crowded when the second contracts of Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner kick in, even if it means the eventual departure of a key piece like William Nylander. Tavares is a proven elite centreman. Nylander has the potential to be a centreman. Even if the stark age gap is a concern — Tavares will be 28 in September; Nylander turned 22 last month — ask head coach Mike Babcock who he’d prefer on the depth chart.
If Tavares happened to be in the market for career advice this week, any sane person would tell him playing for the Maple Leafs is a dream option. If he’s as much of a hockey junkie as everyone says he is, if he loves the GTA as much as his off-season residence in his hometown market suggests he does, it’s impossible to imagine how he’d see a downside in being a linchpin of the Cup contender the Maple Leafs would instantly become. It’s hard to fathom how he’d see comparable upside on Long Island.
Any sane person would tell him that, as much as newly installed Islanders GM Lou Lamoriello might be offering the appearance of long-sought stability on Long Island, 75year-old general managers don’t turn around teams. Twenty-something-year-old players turn around teams. Toronto has plenty of those, and a Calder Cup-winning roster full of tradeable pieces that could soon bring more.
Any sane person would tell Tavares the Islanders’ plan to play home games in two separate arenas for the next few years sounds like the kind of commuting hell nobody else in pro sports has to endure. They’d tell him: Anybody but the Islanders. And they’d know, too, that it’s likely they’ll soon be shrugging in unsurprised resignation when Tavares chooses to continue his life in well-paid purgatory with the only team he’s ever known.