Speculation: Tavares Tells Toronto, "I'm YOUR Huckleberry Now". Fans leaguewide mourn.

[Stealth JD]

Ok...figured it was time to put an all encompassing JT-thread on the board, rather than spread the speculation across the 'Trades' thread or the 'Around the NHL' thread constantly. Yes - admittedly I'm probably to blame for much of that, so from now on I'll try to keep it in one place for those who don't want to talk about the (perhaps not so) faint possibility of Tavares becoming available and theoretically finding himself traded out of NYI.

It's no secret Tavares would be the perfect fit for this roster. As would he in Montreal. Or Carolina. Or Nashville. Or Minnesota. If he comes available, it's going to be difficult to outbid some of those teams if they make their best trade pieces available too. As much as we love the depth, we're missing that top-15 prospect that other teams may be willing to sacrifice in a trade for a #1C.

Contract extension. Trade-package. Roster make-up. Line combos. All speculation about Tavares, his future and his (un-) likelihood of being dealt are welcome here.

If Poile lands him, with 2 years of landing Johansen...that's going to be tough to swallow.

Click to read more...

 

[TheBluePenguin]

As much as I would love to see us land JT, I just cannot see a senerio that we could offer that could not be beaten by another team. One can dream though

 

[Kasparov]

As much as I would love to see us land JT, I just cannot see a senerio that we could offer that could not be beaten by another team. One can dream though

I don't think he's in it entirely for the money...otherwise he wouldn't care at all about an area being built. He wants to be apart of a stable and winning franchise, which isn't exactly how I would describe NYI.

I'm not sure what exactly is going on with the cap situation in Nashville, but with rinne, subban, and Johansson all on monster contracts and Josi needing a new one in a few years, I can't see them being able to pony up the money to even be in the same conversation as other teams.

With that said, I think the blues have as good of a shot as any team to land him

 

[PiggySmalls]

Blues are no doubt an attractive landing spot for JT. Not only will he immediately be the 1C (obviously) but look at all the weapons on the wings for him. He is going to have his pick of who he meshes with on his line. I'm still expecting him to re-sign with Islanders. But front office would go after him really hard if he is available on July 1st.

 

[Ranksu]

 

[Brian39]

I think Nashville has a smaller chance of landing him than most teams around the league. I don't see the incentive for Tavares to go anywhere unless he is guaranteed 1C duties with top end talent on his wing. Giving RyJo $64 mil makes it pretty unlikely that they would be willing to offer that assurance. RyJo and Forsberg meshed incredibly well together, so I doubt Nashville would promise Tavares that Forsberg will be stapled to his wing. Nashville has good depth at wing, but nothing more interesting than the wingers Tavares has carried around for the first half of his career. I think you also risk royally pissing off RyJo if you bring in Tavares and slide him down to the 2nd line within a year of committing to him as your franchise center.

 

[TK 421]

As much as I would love to see us land JT, I just cannot see a senerio that we could offer that could not be beaten by another team. One can dream though

We are one of the best positioned teams to land Tavares. Multiple quality prospects at all positions coupled with a roster that's already a Western Conference contender. I have already seen multiple Islander fans suggest they would prefer it be a deal with us because of our quality prospect pool. Our strength is that we can offer a lot of flexibility to Garth Snow depending on what he wants in return and also in that we're well positioned to absorb the loss of whatever we have to give up. Let's say he needs a top 6 center prospect to be part of the package...ok Garth you can have one of Barbashev or Thomas. What else would you like?

The only potential snag is that we may not have the most coveted primary piece to offer. Let's say for instance that our primary piece is Jaden Schwartz or Robby Fabbri and our competitor is offering a guy Snow likes better. When trading a franchise center of Tavares caliber his GM needs an immediately good player to help sell the fan base and soften the blow. Even if we're offering better total value he may pass if the competitor has a guy he can more easily sell the fans on.

That's the only scenario where the Blues would lose out though, I think we can absolutely murder any one else's total value package due to having both a strong NHL team AND a very strong prospect pool.

 

[Dbrownss]

All I can say is that if JT does become available, Army does everything within his power to get him.

 

[TK 421]

I forgot to add that if Nashville landed him I would punt a puppy into a group of senior citizens before planning something worse for an encore.

 

[Dbrownss]

I forgot to add that if Nashville landed him I would punt a puppy into a group of senior citizens before planning something worse for an encore.

I already dislike that team as it is....

 

[Klank Loves You]

This all ends with Tavarea re-signing with the Islanders.

 

[Dbrownss]

This all ends with Tavarea re-signing with the Islanders.

This is true lol

 

[Stealth JD]

This all ends with Tavarea re-signing with the Islanders.

If he was going to, why wouldn't he have by now?
I guess he's affording the club the opportunity to get the arena debacle settled and see how the season unfolds...but more signs are pointing to him at least considering moving on.

 

[Chojin]

We would have to lose *a lot* of salary in order to afford JT at something like the Toews/Kane contracts ($10.5m). Assuming no cap increase, we'd have to:

- Let Stastny walk
- Lose Gunnarson's salary entirely (possible)
- Find a taker for J-Bo (unlikely) or buy him out at $1.8m AAV (possible)
- Have Husso/Binnington back up Allen
- Sign/re-sign/assign five forwards, our entire left defense, and seventh defenseman for around $11.5m

That last point is doable if you sign our RFA's to bridge contracts and fill out the rest of the roster with players on ELC's and league-minimum contracts.

Using Psyck, Beaulieu, and Schmidt and comparables, you're looking at around $2.5m for Edmundson. For Fabbri, Burakovsky and Teravainen are comparables making around $3m. Who knows with Schmaltz, but let's assume $1.5m. I'm thinking we'd have something like this:

CapFriendly.com Armchair-GM User-Generated Roster

FORWARDS (14)
Right wing: V. Tarasenko ($7,500,000) - B. Schenn ($5,125,000) - V. Sobotka ($3,500,000) - T. Thompson ($925,000)
Centre: J. Tavares ($10,500,000) - P. Berglund ($3,850,000) - I. Barbashev ($741,667) - O. Sundqvist ($750,000) - C. Bleackley ($700,000)
Left wing: R. Fabbri ($3,000,000) - J. Schwartz ($5,350,000) - A. Steen ($5,750,000) - J. Kyrou ($772,500) - C. Thorburn ($900,000)

DEFENSE (7)
Right: A. Pietrangelo ($6,500,000) - C. Parayko ($5,500,000) - J. Schmaltz ($1,500,000) - R. Bortuzzo ($1,150,000)
Left: J. Edmundson ($2,500,000) - V. Dunn ($722,500) - J. Walman ($925,000)

GOALTENDER (2)
J. Allen ($4,350,000) - V. Husso ($847,500)

BUYOUTS
J. Bouwmeester ($1,800,000)

DETAILS
Roster Size: 23
NHL Salary Cap: $75,000,000
Cap Hit: $75,159,167
Cap Space: -$159,167

Honestly, that team looks pretty damned good aside from all the inexperience on the defense, but I think it's a long shot without even considering that JT probably won't consider us as an option.

 

[MortiestOfMortys]

If he was going to, why wouldn't he have by now?
I guess he's affording the club the opportunity to get the arena debacle settled and see how the season unfolds...but more signs are pointing to him at least considering moving on.

They just bought him a brand new toy to play with in Eberle. If your mom bought you a brand new xbox you might wait a week to play it first before moving out.

 

[Splatter]

This all ends with Tavarea re-signing with the Islanders.

Yep. Stamkos free agency all over again.

 

[Majorityof1]

CapFriendly.com Armchair-GM User-Generated Roster

FORWARDS (14)
Right wing: V. Tarasenko ($7,500,000) - B. Schenn ($5,125,000) - V. Sobotka ($3,500,000) - T. Thompson ($925,000)
Centre: J. Tavares ($10,500,000) - P. Berglund ($3,850,000) - I. Barbashev ($741,667) - O. Sundqvist ($750,000) - C. Bleackley ($700,000)
Left wing: R. Fabbri ($3,000,000) - J. Schwartz ($5,350,000) - A. Steen ($5,750,000) - J. Kyrou ($772,500) - C. Thorburn ($900,000)

DEFENSE (7)
Right: A. Pietrangelo ($6,500,000) - C. Parayko ($5,500,000) - J. Schmaltz ($1,500,000) - R. Bortuzzo ($1,150,000)
Left: J. Edmundson ($2,500,000) - V. Dunn ($722,500) - J. Walman ($925,000)

GOALTENDER (2)
J. Allen ($4,350,000) - V. Husso ($847,500)

BUYOUTS
J. Bouwmeester ($1,800,000)

DETAILS
Roster Size: 23
NHL Salary Cap: $75,000,000
Cap Hit: $75,159,167
Cap Space: -$159,167

Honestly, that team looks pretty damned good aside from all the inexperience on the defense, but I think it's a long shot without even considering that JT probably won't consider us as an option.

I am going to ignore the decision to cut costs with JBO as opposed to other options. But why is Bleakley listed? He couldn't perform in the AHL last year, much less playing the NHL, even sitting in the press box.

 

[Chojin]

I am going to ignore the decision to cut costs with JBO as opposed to other options. But why is Bleakley listed? He couldn't perform in the AHL last year, much less playing the NHL, even sitting in the press box.

He's just a placeholder for "random extra forward making the league minimum".

 

[Em etah Eh]

This all ends with Tavarea re-signing with the Islanders.

Tavares makes it to free agency

Multiple reports come out that he has signed with Nashville.

TK 421 punts puppies into crowds of senior citizens.

Additional reports come out that the previous reports of Tavares signing in Nashville are untrue.

Tavares signs with NYI.

 

[Majorityof1]

I forgot to add that if Nashville landed him I would punt a puppy into a group of senior citizens before planning something worse for an encore.

Tavares makes it to free agency

Multiple reports come out that he has signed with Nashville.

TK 421 punts puppies into crowds of senior citizens.

Additional reports come out that the previous reports of Tavares signing in Nashville are untrue.

Tavares signs with NYI.

He only vowed to punt the single puppy, followed by heretofore unspecified "something worse". It would be quite anti-climatic, albeit arguably true to his promise, if that something worse was to punt more puppies.

They just bought him a brand new toy to play with in Eberle. If your mom bought you a brand new xbox you might wait a week to play it first before moving out.

Asking for an elite winger and getting Eberle is more like if you asked your mom for the new "Project Scorpio" edition of the Xbox One X with a copy of GTA V but instead got an original Xbox with Blinx the Time Sweeper, a game about a cat with a time traveling vacuum cleaner. Suprisingly fun game, but not exactly what you asked for.

 

[Bluesnatic27]

Asking for an elite winger and getting Eberle is more like if you asked your mom for the new "Project Scorpio" edition of the Xbox One X with a copy of GTA V but instead got an original Xbox with Blinx the Time Sweeper, a game about a cat with a time traveling vacuum cleaner. Suprisingly fun game, but not exactly what you asked for.

That was a surprisingly vivid analogy...

Everything okay there Majority?

 

[Dbrownss]

Asking for an elite winger and getting Eberle is more like if you asked your mom for the new "Project Scorpio" edition of the Xbox One X with a copy of GTA V but instead got an original Xbox with Blinx the Time Sweeper, a game about a cat with a time traveling vacuum cleaner. Suprisingly fun game, but not exactly what you asked for.

Very good analogy for potentially playing with Tarasenko and getting Jordan Eberle.....

 

[Majorityof1]

That was a surprisingly vivid analogy...

Everything okay there Majority?

lol yep, everything is great. If I am joking around even sarcastically, that's me in a good mood. As for the vividness of the analogy, don't ask me where it came from. I have a very....ummm, lets say...unique sense of humor. I already bought my XB1X and a long time ago I bought Blinx for myself, so no hidden resentment there. Its just one of the worst game concepts ever, so I thought it would make a funny analogy.

I like how nobody is asking the guy threatening to kick puppies if he is OK

 

[David Dennison]

As much as I would love to see us land JT, I just cannot see a senerio that we could offer that could not be beaten by another team. One can dream though

Are you talking about acquiring him thru trade or on July 1?

I think that we could put together as competitive a package for JT as any other team (We dont have a 1st next year, but we have plenty of prospects to deal), but there is a point where it doesnt make sense for us to do it. Bottom line is that there is no guarantee he would re-sign with us, so I am very wary of trading the farm for a rental who no additional incentive to re-sign with us.

And there is a lot of potential downside in giving someone who will be 28 an 8 year, 9-10m contract. It is just extremely rare for a player to be as productive in their 30s as they are in their 20s, and there is a chance that it becomes an albatross the last few seasons. Maybe this is the time you just go for it and deal with the cap consequences as they come, but it definitely makes it harder to keep everyone else around or add other pieces (Petro is up in 3 seasons). To be worth 10m+, you have to be elite, not just very good.

 

[AVictoryDive]

Are you talking about acquiring him thru trade or on July 1?

I think that we could put together as competitive a package for JT as any other team (We dont have a 1st next year, but we have plenty of prospects to deal), but there is a point where it doesnt make sense for us to do it. Bottom line is that there is no guarantee he would re-sign with us, so I am very wary of trading the farm for a rental who no additional incentive to re-sign with us.

And there is a lot of potential downside in giving someone who will be 28 an 8 year, 9-10m contract. It is just extremely rare for a player to be as productive in their 30s as they are in their 20s, and there is a chance that it becomes an albatross the last few seasons. Maybe this is the time you just go for it and deal with the cap consequences as they come, but it definitely makes it harder to keep everyone else around or add other pieces (Petro is up in 3 seasons). To be worth 10m+, you have to be elite, not just very good.

He's actually 26 going on 27 so he definitely fits our core age group.
7 years will bring him to 34 and I'd definitely roll the dice.