Tavares

[ZBBM]

Does anyone here really think the Leafs *didn't* play the hometown angle in their pitch yesterday?

I would genuinely be surprised if it constituted a major part of their pitch.

I'd guess they could mount a compelling enough case around being one of the top 8 teams in the league, trending up as their young stars continue to develop, having a coach he's won with before, investing in a lot of off-the-ice perks, and being able to afford him...

... and fulfilling his dream.  Assuming he grew up a Leafs fan, that is.  If he didn't, then it's just a business transaction.

 

[jdh1]

I,m still wondering how serious the Leaf offer is. Do they want him for just 1 year and go for it?  or are they angling on a 7 year deal.  If they do go for the 7 can they fit all the top players in the cap ?

Or are they playing safe if Mathews and Babcock can,t exist together and can,t make a deal in the next year.  Taveras becomes the no.1 center.

This has probably been discussed here already but i,m trying to figure it out.

 

[princedpw]

I,m still wondering how serious the Leaf offer is. Do they want him for just 1 year and go for it?  or are they angling on a 7 year deal.  If they do go for the 7 can they fit all the top players in the cap ?

Or are they playing safe if Mathews and Babcock can,t exist together and can,t make a deal in the next year.  Taveras becomes the no.1 center.

This has probably been discussed here already but i,m trying to figure it out.

There are many other teams that are very serious so I can't imagine the Leafs would waste his time if they weren't as well.

The Leafs have every reason to be serious.  They can definitely fit Tavares and the big 3 under the cap.  Can they fit Tavares, the big 3 and Gardiner?  I can't remember.  It may depend on the details of what they all want.  But even if they can't, I think Tavares > Nylander.  So if they were forced to trade Nylander, it wouldn't be so bad as he'd fetch a kings ransom in prospects and draft picks.

  (Tavares + Nylander for 1 year + the return on the trade of Nylander) >>> Nylander

So it makes sense to grab Tavares no matter what in my mind.

 

[jdh1]

I,m still wondering how serious the Leaf offer is. Do they want him for just 1 year and go for it?  or are they angling on a 7 year deal.  If they do go for the 7 can they fit all the top players in the cap ?

Or are they playing safe if Mathews and Babcock can,t exist together and can,t make a deal in the next year.  Taveras becomes the no.1 center.

This has probably been discussed here already but i,m trying to figure it out.

There are many other teams that are very serious so I can't imagine the Leafs would waste his time if they weren't as well.

The Leafs have every reason to be serious.  They can definitely fit Tavares and the big 3 under the cap.  Can they fit Tavares, the big 3 and Gardiner?  I can't remember.  It may depend on the details of what they all want.  But even if they can't, I think Tavares > Nylander.  So if they were forced to trade Nylander, it wouldn't be so bad as he'd fetch a kings ransom in prospects and draft picks.

  (Tavares + Nylander for 1 year + the return on the trade of Nylander) >>> Nylander

So it makes sense to grab Tavares no matter what in my mind.

  If they move Nylander down the road then I can see where they make up the space in the cap.Probably a good trade off.

 

[herman]

https://twitter.com/reporterchris/status/1011930395972067328

 

[Bill_Berg]

https://twitter.com/reporterchris/status/1011930395972067328

If he doesn't sign with NY today or tomorrow, after his last meetings, I suppose that means he's going to one of these other teams.

 

[bustaheims]

If he doesn't sign with NY today or tomorrow, after his last meetings, I suppose that means he's going to one of these other teams.

I won't believe that to be true until after midnight on Saturday. The scuttlebutt is that he's being very deliberate about this decision, and it wouldn't surprise me if he takes as much time as is available to him.

 

[Kin]

I think one of the problems I have with the whole hometown thing is that if you break it down with brutal honesty you begin to see just how much weight you're putting on it.

I'm as big a Toronto partisan as any but let's be real with some disadvantages to signing here with any hockey concerns eliminated:

- Taxes are fairly high
- The weather isn't for everyone
- It's not the nicest looking city
- In terms of natural attractions...there ain't none
- An invasive media
- A somewhat fickle fanbase when it comes to players

And on the flipside:

- Playing for the Leafs may have meant a lot to you as a kid

To be sure there are some great things about the city as well but a lot of those things are fairly meaningless to hockey players, or maybe even less than that. Having a great bar scene doesn't matter much if fans are constantly bugging you and a great food scene seems less exciting if reporters are checking to make sure you're eating right so they know what to blame if you have a disappointing season.

What's especially frustrating about this for me is I was saying all this stuff during the lockouts. Capping the one real direct benefit a player can get from this city, we're suckers for hockey so we'll pay anything, really puts the Leafs in a hole.

 

[Bill_Berg]

I've been to a lot of cities. Some are nicer than Toronto some are not. Toronto will always be my favorite because it's my city. I'm not saying Tavares feels like that, but some players do I'm sure. And those that do have incentive to sign here for more reasons than just they cheered for Toronto as a kid.

I'm not saying it outweighs the negatives, just saying there can be a strong emotional pull to the city on top of the team. In my experience, emotion often rules over logic. Of course, that's why players have agents.

 

[Kin]

I'm not saying it outweighs the negatives, just saying there can be a strong emotional pull to the city on top of the team.

Sure but let's be real. Each and everyone of these guys, if they want, can spend as much time as they want to in their hometowns during the summers.  There's a pretty far gap between having affection for a city and feeling like you need to live there year round.

Also, and I can't speak for you and your experiences, it seems unlikely that someone who didn't grow up in the city would have a genuine affection for the city. Which isn't to say that he wouldn't be a fan of the Leafs or didn't like, I don't know, going to Canada's Wonderland as a kid but if you grow up in Oakville I don't know how much connection you're going to feel to Toronto as a city. I can definitely say that as someone who grew up in Toronto proper I have little to no feelings about the surrounding towns where I never spent any time.

 

[Frank E]

I've been to a lot of cities. Some are nicer than Toronto some are not. Toronto will always be my favorite because it's my city. I'm not saying Tavares feels like that, but some players do I'm sure. And those that do have incentive to sign here for more reasons than just they cheered for Toronto as a kid.

I'm not saying it outweighs the negatives, just saying there can be a strong emotional pull to the city on top of the team. In my experience, emotion often rules over logic. Of course, that's why players have agents.

I think the problem I would have is that I'd like to spend my time in a nice warm climate.  I can fly back "home" to Toronto and visit whenever I want when I make $10m a year.  I can spend my summer here, and in Muskoka.  Heck, I can leave my wife and family in Oakville if they want, and I'll just rent a massive awesome condo in San Jose.

If the only teams that were bidding on his services were northern climates, then sure, I think Toronto has some very nice appeal.  But you throw Dallas, Tampa, and San Jose in the mix, and I think Dubas is screwed, unless he's offering a lot more money.

 

[Bates]

If i was picking a place to play and weather was a major consideration I would not be picking San Jose.  It's cold there despite being "warmer" than most NHL Cities in the winter.

 

[Kin]

Another thing, and I realize that my experiences as a just ok high school baseball player would be very different than Tavares' as a hockey phenom, is that I don't know if people with pro aspirations necessarily look at things the same way your average fans do.

Did I occasionally think about how great it'd be to be a Blue Jay? Sure. Did I also think it would have been awesome to be a Cub and get to play in Historic Wrigley Field? Yup. Despite all that, would I have slit someone's throat to get to be a 4th outfielder for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays? Absolutely. My own recollections of taking sports seriously is being tunnel focused on just making it to the next level by any means necessary.

My hunch is that the sort of "Wouldn't it be awesome to win a championship for the Leafs" daydreaming stuff is probably more pronounced in people who are further away from the actual work of the sport.

 

[Kin]

If i was picking a place to play and weather was a major consideration I would not be picking San Jose.  It's cold there despite being "warmer" than most NHL Cities in the winter.

I think you'd seriously struggle to find somewhere that was as temperate. Nice weather, to some folks, is as much about warmth in the winter as it is avoiding 40 degrees in the sun.

 

[Bill_Berg]

I'm not saying it outweighs the negatives, just saying there can be a strong emotional pull to the city on top of the team.

Sure but let's be real. Each and everyone of these guys, if they want, can spend as much time as they want to in their hometowns during the summers.  There's a pretty far gap between having affection for a city and feeling like you need to live there year round.

Also, and I can't speak for you and your experiences, it seems unlikely that someone who didn't grow up in the city would have a genuine affection for the city. Which isn't to say that he wouldn't be a fan of the Leafs or didn't like, I don't know, going to Canada's Wonderland as a kid but if you grow up in Oakville I don't know how much connection you're going to feel to Toronto as a city. I can definitely say that as someone who grew up in Toronto proper I have little to no feelings about the surrounding towns where I never spent any time.

Good point on the offseason. And that emotional is probably different for everyone. I grew up in Scarboro and Mississauga then moved to Toronto when I was 20 or so. But I was downtown all the time, Jay games, the Ex, visiting family, just going to Yonge st for the day as a teenager, etc...

 

[Bill_Berg]

I've been to a lot of cities. Some are nicer than Toronto some are not. Toronto will always be my favorite because it's my city. I'm not saying Tavares feels like that, but some players do I'm sure. And those that do have incentive to sign here for more reasons than just they cheered for Toronto as a kid.

I'm not saying it outweighs the negatives, just saying there can be a strong emotional pull to the city on top of the team. In my experience, emotion often rules over logic. Of course, that's why players have agents.

I think the problem I would have is that I'd like to spend my time in a nice warm climate.  I can fly back "home" to Toronto and visit whenever I want when I make $10m a year.  I can spend my summer here, and in Muskoka.  Heck, I can leave my wife and family in Oakville if they want, and I'll just rent a massive awesome condo in San Jose.

If the only teams that were bidding on his services were northern climates, then sure, I think Toronto has some very nice appeal.  But you throw Dallas, Tampa, and San Jose in the mix, and I think Dubas is screwed, unless he's offering a lot more money.

Sure, and maybe Tavares has a similar opinion.  I wouldn't want to spend all my time in a hot climate, but that's just me. The taxes, on the other hand, would probably influence my opinion. I'm just saying the potential pull to any team is not just because the player likes or liked that team as a kid. People can actually care about cities too, even cities that aren't the best cities to live in. Maybe JVR will end up in a swamp, just because he calls it home.

 

[bustaheims]

I think the problem I would have is that I'd like to spend my time in a nice warm climate.  I can fly back "home" to Toronto and visit whenever I want when I make $10m a year.  I can spend my summer here, and in Muskoka.  Heck, I can leave my wife and family in Oakville if they want, and I'll just rent a massive awesome condo in San Jose.

That's a huge part of it, and I imagine a lot of players who have established a life in one city but end up playing in another do just that. And, for someone like Tavares, who doesn't have any kids, is just getting married this summer (I think - best I can find is he proposed last August), there aren't significant family issues to worry about. In fact, he's likely to prioritize a city that A) has interesting things for him and his wife to do, B) has cheap flights for his wife to visit her family, as he'll be on the road a lot, and C) is somewhere he can see himself living long-term. Is that Toronto? It can certainly be argued it ticks the first box, and possibly the third, but, unless his wife is also from the GTA, it certainly doesn't tick the second in as strong a way as any major US city.

 

[dappleganger]

I see a lot of people talk about the tax situation but do people also talk about converting your US dollar paycheck into Canadian and getting a 25% bump?

$11m US converts to $14.615m CND right now.

That's not nothing. I know I'd love that. I sometimes get paid in US with the work I do, and I enjoy it.  ;D

 

[Deebo]

I think the problem I would have is that I'd like to spend my time in a nice warm climate.  I can fly back "home" to Toronto and visit whenever I want when I make $10m a year.  I can spend my summer here, and in Muskoka.  Heck, I can leave my wife and family in Oakville if they want, and I'll just rent a massive awesome condo in San Jose.

That's a huge part of it, and I imagine a lot of players who have established a life in one city but end up playing in another do just that. And, for someone like Tavares, who doesn't have any kids, is just getting married this summer (I think - best I can find is he proposed last August), there aren't significant family issues to worry about. In fact, he's likely to prioritize a city that A) has interesting things for him and his wife to do, B) has cheap flights for his wife to visit her family, as he'll be on the road a lot, and C) is somewhere he can see himself living long-term. Is that Toronto? It can certainly be argued it ticks the first box, and possibly the third, but, unless his wife is also from the GTA, it certainly doesn't tick the second in as strong a way as any major US city.

She is from the GTA.

 

[Kin]

I see a lot of people talk about the tax situation but do people also talk about converting your US dollar paycheck into Canadian and getting a 25% bump?

$11m US converts to $14.615m CND right now.

That's not nothing. I know I'd love that. I sometimes get paid in US with the work I do, and I enjoy it.  ;D

Have to figure a lot of that would get eaten up by the relatively higher cost of living in Toronto than in other cities. Also, very rich people will by and large spend the smallest % of their money locally.