An article from globeandmail.com: Tavares doesn't plan holdout

DAVID SHOALTS
Globe and Mail Columnist
April 20, 2009 at 10:55 AM EDT

John Tavares was thrilled when Brian Burke declared he would move heaven and earth to try to get him in a Toronto Maple Leafs uniform.

But if the New York Islanders use their first pick overall in the NHL entry draft on Tavares, as expected, Tavares will become an Islander. There will be no Eric Lindros-style holdout even though Tavares grew up in Oakville, Ont., worshipping Steve Thomas, Mats Sundin, Curtis Joseph and the Maple Leafs.

“It was a big surprise to me,” Tavares said of the declaration by Burke, the Leafs' president and general manager, that he will try to trade up in the draft to take Tavares.

“Obviously, that doesn't happen very often. It was also flattering to have an NHL general manager say he really wants me and is willing to do a lot to get me. It was exciting with everything else that was going on, too.”

But that, Tavares has said more than once, is as far as it goes. Even though the once-proud Islanders are now the Siberia of the NHL, neither Tavares nor his agents, Pat Brisson and J.P. Barry, will try any strong-arm tactics like telling the Islanders or the Tampa Bay Lightning, who have the No.2 pick, that he will not play for them.

“No, not at all,” Tavares said. “Wherever I'm selected, I'm going to go and play there.

“I've said it before, my goal is to play in the National Hockey League. It's not about where I play or who I am. I just want to be part of the franchise.”

The question, then, is whether Tavares is good enough as a player to be worth all the fuss. Is he the next Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin or even Steve Stamkos, good enough to lead a franchise as chronically inept as the Islanders back to the excellence they last enjoyed in the 1980s?

The answer, as it is with all 18-year-old hockey players, is maybe.

A scout who works for an NHL team that has no chance of drafting Tavares is not convinced he will be a franchise player. At this point, the scout said, he believes Tavares will be a very good player, one “who will score between 40 and 50 goals a year in the NHL,” but not a franchise player.

The problem is, teenage hockey players develop at different rates. Decisions are based not so much on how good the player is on draft day but on his potential.

“Is what you saw from Stamkos [in junior hockey] 50 per cent of what he has or is what you see from Tavares 30 per cent of what he has?” the scout said. “You have to make decisions based on that, which is what makes [the entry draft] such a crapshoot.”

Mark Hunter, a former NHL player who is now co-owner and general manager of the Ontario Hockey League's London Knights, is a believer. He landed Tavares in January in a huge trade with the Oshawa Generals that saw six players and 10 draft picks change hands in a bid to make the Knights a Memorial Cup contender.

“I don't have all the answers for that but I believe he is,” Hunter said.

“He's done it every year and at every level,” Hunter said. “I've seen him do it as a minor midget and I've seen him do it here. I think he's ready to play in the NHL right now, he's that good.”

The numbers, at first glance, back up Hunter. Tavares was good enough to play major-junior hockey at 15 and he started scoring immediately. He had 45 goals in his first season and in March became the leading goal-scorer in OHL history, finishing with 215.

Tavares has also shone on a bigger stage. He was the most valuable player at this year's world junior championship with eight goals and seven assists in six games as Canada won the gold medal.

But for all that, Tavares is not the kind of player who pulls fans out of their seats. He is not a dazzling skater and stick-handler like Malkin or Alexander Ovechkin. But he is a classic sniper like Brett Hull, a smart player with a quick, deadly accurate shot who always seems to be around a loose puck.

Right now, the only knock on Tavares is that his defensive skills need improvement. But that has been said about every would-be star.

“He is more scorer than playmaker, I'll give them that,” Hunter says of the scouts. “No one's ever taught them the defensive game from a young age because they are so good. John never had to learn because he had the puck all the time.

“But the good ones, like Stamkos, like John, figure it out.”

So far in the OHL playoffs, though, Tavares is having nothing but trouble. He sustained a shoulder injury in mid-January in the annual prospects game, an exhibition, and it's been a problem off and on ever since, although Hunter says Tavares is healthy now. But with 16 points in 12 playoff games going into yesterday's Western Conference final game against the Windsor Spitfires, Tavares didn't even lead his team in scoring.


More on Tavares: Greg Logan reports the Islanders' bigwigs will be visiting London, Ontario tonight to see Tavares in person.