Maple Leafs: John Tavares right to leave Islanders the way he did

John Tavares has been criticized a lot for leaving the New York Islanders for the Toronto Maple Leafs. That criticism is unwarranted.

From an objective standpoint, I don’t blame John Tavares for leaving the New York Islanders for the Toronto Maple Leafs when he did and the way he did. I was a firm believer that he was 100% in the wrong, agreeing with what Islanders fans were saying, what they still say about it to this day and will say if any of them read this article. Before you throw your stones my way, let me explain.

For fans of other fanbases who don’t know much about Tavares before he left the Islanders for the Maple Leafs, here is a short summary of what he accomplished in the blue and orange.

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Tavares sits seventh all-time in goals and fifth in points in franchise history, a franchise that had a lot of Hockey Hall Of Famers don the orange and blue before him. He was an iconic figure for the Islanders, serving as the team captain for five of his nine seasons with the club. Everyone owned a number 91 jersey.

His signature moment was scoring the double overtime winner in Game 6 of the first round of the 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs. That goal clinched the Islanders first playoff series win in 23 years. During those nine seasons, he was the Islanders.

A soon to be unrestricted free agent after the completion of the 2017-18 season, Tavares said he wanted to stay with the Islanders as late as January 15th, 2018.

“I hope to stay in Long Island” was his famous quote that day, roughly a month before the trade deadline that season.

Tavares grew up a huge Toronto Maple Leafs fan and always dreamed of playing for the organization someday, a dream he set forth to accomplish growing up in Mississauga, Ontario. When the opportunity came calling following the season, he could not say no, as he signed a 11-year deal worth $77 million dollars. This left the Islanders faithful irate.

Even if he didn’t want to re-sign with the club all along, the Islanders could have traded him at the deadline as a rental to a cup contender or a team on the bubble of playoff contention. That would have given them a slew of prospects and draft picks to build towards the future instead of losing him for nothing, which they eventually did aside from more salary cap flexibility.

The management of the Islanders was revamped before the free agency period began, hiring Stanley Cup winners in general manager Lou Lamoreillo and head coach Barry Trotz, in an effort to show Tavares that this team was all about winning now.

As a New York Rangers fan, one example opened my eyes on how the flip side of this scenario could have played out down the road – Henrik Lundqvist. Here is a player that gave everything he had to the Rangers organization for 15 seasons now.

The former Vezina Trophy winner in the 2011-2012 season had nine seasons of playing 60 plus games, eight seasons of a .920% save percentage or above, nine seasons of a 2.40 goals-against average or lower and is currently sixth on the all time wins list for goalies in NHL history.

Everyone who owns a Rangers jersey has a Lundqvist number 30. Simply put, he WAS the New York Rangers for more than a decade, especially in the beginning of his career.

This is a player that has shown a tremendous amount of loyalty to the New York Rangers throughout his career and never wavered. Lundqvist has always stated that he wanted to be with the New York Rangers and never kept the organization in limbo, never fought his way out of the organization when things started going south to chase a Cup and never ditched the club for his own benefit.

In the last two seasons, Lundqvist has endured decreased playing time even while healthy. His overall performance hasn’t been anywhere near what it once was, naturally as a now 38 year old goaltender. This season he played in less than half of his team’s games for the first time in his career, having two goaltenders getting playing time over him towards the last half of this season.

While all this has unfolded, a large number of Rangers fans are rooting for the other goalies over Lundqvist and would love nothing more than to have him off this team either by trade, buyout or retiring. Everything crashing down on a once revered iconic figure for this New York Rangers team now being pushed out the door unceremoniously in front of all our eyes.

This is not unprecedented what the New York Rangers have done to Lundqvist. It happens to all teams in all sports to a similar degree at one point or another. There is just no loyalty in sports anymore, on either side.

We as fans always side with the teams when players leave, saying “they left for the money,” “they are greedy,” “they have no loyalty.” Organizations will cut ties with any player that isn’t performing as well as they used to or gets injury prone and physically can’t be who they once were, no matter how important and loyal they have been to that organization.

I won’t say all fans, but a large number of fans from any fanbase will turn their back on that same player they revered in year’s past and go for the better, younger model. Everything is win now, from impatient fanbases who largely won’t attend games if the team is doing poorly to coaches and executives playing for another year of employment and their own stability.

There is no greater example than Tom Brady, winning the most Super Bowls as a quarterback in NFL history and always taking less money than he could have commanded yearly, not even getting a contract offer from the New England Patriots this offseason. He will be playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the upcoming 2020-2021 NFL season.

John Tavares did what he felt like he needed to do in this situation. He always wanted to be a Toronto Maple Leaf and he now lives that dream. It is rare that a player has the option to play on the teams they grew up rooting for. Either by player circumstance or team needs and salary cap restrictions, it doesn’t happen more times than it does.

Like any other person in any other workplace, they should be happy where they are no matter the scale. A perfect whirlwind of circumstance happened to pave the way, and he took advantage of it.

Maybe he was on the fence up until free agency and really wanted to stay on Long Island. Maybe Tavares was waiting to see if the Maple Leafs would have the salary cap space to make it happen and if they didn’t, he would have stayed on Long Island. We will never know.

John Tavares did what was best for him and his family, taking advantage of age and a set of circumstances that made it happen. And I don’t blame him for it.