Isles’ Tavares catching up with ex-mates
LOS ANGELES — It has to pull on the heartstrings of Islanders fans to hear their captain, John Tavares, had dinner Friday night out here with two of his closest friends and now-departed teammates, Frans Nielsen and Kyle Okposo.
All three are taking part in this weekend’s All-Star game, but Okposo left this summer to sign a big free-agent deal with the Sabres, and Nielsen did the same with the Red Wings.
“I think we know they’re great players,” Tavares told The Post on Saturday before the skills competition. “Just the way the game works today, with the salary cap and how that works into it, you lose a lot of players because of that. Certain decisions have to be made.”
When Tavares joined the Islanders in 2009-10, just after being the No. 1overall selection in the 2009 draft, he joined Ok- poso and Nielsen, both of whom had been stalwarts over the previous two years. Okposo was the No. 7-overall selection in the 2006 draft, and Nielsen was a third-round steal from 2002, only coming over from his native Denmark to make a short debut in 2006.
The trio hit a peak this past spring, when the Islanders won a playoff series for the first time in 23 years. But Okposo, 28, and Nielsen, 32, were both unrestricted free agents, and general manager Garth Snow did not get them signed. Okposo inked a seven-year, $42 million deal with Buffalo, while Nielsen got a six-year deal worth $31.5 million in Detroit.
“I think maybe not even just those guys, but other guys in the past, you always love and hope some guys could stay for a long time, but it’s just not really the way the game works,” Tavares said. “It is what it is. You don’t even really go there.”