I Hate The Lou Lamoriello Is Going To Rob Us All Of The John Tavares Sweepstakes
So Lou Lamoriello is about to take the wheel with the New York Islanders. He was named the President of Hockey Operations and I have to imagine that means that Garth Snow’s keycard to get into the building is going to just stop working eventually. But yeah, Lightning Lou is headed to Brooklyn and then to Belmont Park.
And with the Islanders bringing in Lou Lamoriello and his 3 Stanley Cup rings, it’s pretty safe to assume that the John Tavares sweepstakes this summer will be called off.
Which is bullshit because hockey fans deserve to have something to look forward to on July 1st. This was supposed to be the year. This was supposed to be the year that Free Agency Frenzy lived up to every ounce of the hype. Rarely do we see a superstar with the talent that John Tavares has finish out his contract year without an extension. There are only a handful of guys who I think a team would take over somebody like John Tavares and those guys all have last names like Crosby, McDavid, Ovechkin, possibly Toews. So the fact that we’re only a little over a month away from July 1 and John Tavares still doesn’t have a contract for next season means that we were supposed to be in store for a show this summer. A top 5-10 player in the league with at least 15 teams who would be willing to open up their checkbooks and give him whatever he wants. Tavares is a guy who seems to keep to himself most of the time and isn’t a huge personality or anything, but it would probably be the biggest free agency target in the last 10 years.
And with Lou Lamoriello taking control of the Islanders? Well he just robbed us of all of that because I can’t imagine Tavares goes anywhere else now besides staying with the Islanders. So now what? Now what do we have to look forward to from here? Because with John Tavares essentially off the market, who will the 2018 free agency be built around?
John Carlson is probably the biggest name on the board now and Johnny boy is about to get PAID. Dude was only making $4M AAV as a top pairing defenseman. And not only a top pair D-man, but one who is currently playing in the Eastern Conference Final.
Next up is probably James van Riemsdyk whose cap hit was only $4.25M AAV. He just turned 29 but that’s still a steal for a 50-60 point scorer in the NHL who will add around 30 goals to any team’s top 6.
Then you’ve got Evander Kane and you also have the potential of Ilya Kovalchuk returning to the NHL. But both of those guys are pretty similar in the sense that whatever team ends up signing them is probably going to be extra cautious and not give them too much term, so we’re probably not going to see any ridiculous contracts coming out of those.
So.. I mean… the 2018 free agency market isn’t exactly a dead one. But there are maybe 4 or 5 names to really watch out for. It had the opportunity to have some life with John Tavares on the market but again, I can’t imagine that’ll be the case for much longer. In the meantime, I guess we all just have to sit back and wait for the 2019 free agency market. Drew Doughty, Erik Karlsson, Matt Duchene, Tyler Seguin, Jeff Skinner, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Max Pacioretty. Obviously a few of those guys are going to sign extensions at some point before July 1, 2019 that next summer is the year. You also have to imagine that with next summer being an absolute loaded lineup of free agents that it’s going to effect the way that teams handle this year’s free agency. So I guess we can all just take a few naps on July 1st this year and you can thank Lou Lamoriello for all of them.