Toronto Maple Leafs Will Have Meeting w/ John Tavares
By Josh Tessler
The most highly sought after free agent, John Tavares will most likely be meeting with Kyle Dubas and the Toronto Maple Leafs front office.
Yesterday, Arthur Staple of The Athletic New York provided up an update on the Tavares sweepstakes. In Staple’s recent post, he explained that it is believed that Tavares will be meeting with representatives from the Toronto Maple Leafs, San Jose Sharks and the Dallas Stars. In addition, he shared that the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Los Angeles Kings could also be looking to add meetings onto Tavares’ calendar.
The exciting thing, and the main takeaway here, is that the Leafs are (most likely) going to get a chance to meet with him and sell him on being a hometown legend.
Competition For Tavares
The Islanders have the advantage because they can offer an eighth year and no one else can. The Leafs have a lot of cap space and can sell Tavares on the fact that with him in the lineup, they’re likely the best team in the NHL. The Stars will likely have a tough time convincing Tavares to move to Texas. Dallas hasn’t made it to the playoffs in two seasons. In addition, they have a few UFAs to replace including Kari Lehtonen, Antoine Roussel and Dan Hamhuis.
The Sharks are in a similar boat. The biggest issue for the Sharks is that they will have to re-sign Tomas Hertl this off-season and then Logan Couture, Joe Pavelski and Timo Meier to stay competitive. They’re also pretty old, and while Tavares would make them a contender, it wouldn’t be for long.
The other clubs in the mix, the Kings and the Lightning can’t afford Tavares at this time. In order to do so, they’ve have to jettison multiple current contracts from their teams. It’s not impossible, and if they plan on meeting him they must have some idea on how they’d do it, but it doesn’t seem likely to me.
The Maple Leafs’ biggest obstacle is the Islanders. The Islanders have the most cap space in the NHL and if they lose Tavares, the team will be in absolute shambles. This means that Lamoriello is probably willing to break the bank in order to keep Tavares in New York.
Hopefully the Toronto Maple Leafs can bring Tavares home. They can offer him the best chance to win, the most money (including endorsements) and a chance to be an all-time legend with an original six franchise.
Will that be enough? We’ll know soon.
stats from NHL.com, cap space research from CapFriendly.com