New York Islanders Daily: John Tavares And State Tax

It looks like John Tavares will play out the final year of his contract with the New York Islanders before making a decision on his future.

Don’t you just love rumors linking John Tavares to other teams? It’s a very stressful time if you’re a New York Islanders fan as you

patiently

await the decision of captain Tavares. Apparently, there’s already speculation of where else he could be headed and it’s not Toronto.

CBS Sports put something up asking if John Tavares could be linked to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Here’s a Larry Brooks quote they used to back this claim:

"“There is a keen sense Tampa Bay will be among his most aggressive suitors, with their no-state-tax location a significant benefit to the cause.”"

Okay, so with that logic why would any player come to New York? Why isn’t Tampa Bay, Florida, Dallas, etc. landing free agents left and right to big money?

As our man Mitch points out if that’s the only reason for the narrative that’s pretty lazy. Come on now are we really going to play the game of state income tax playing that much of a factor in the decision.

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I’m not saying that it couldn’t play somewhat of a role, but if it was a significant enough argument you’d see more free agents head to those teams, which isn’t really the case.

We’ll see what happens in 2019 with Nikita Kucherov and Anton Stralman but for now I don’t think this one has enough legs for it to be a realistic threat. J.T. has made it pretty clear what he wants and that’s an arena decision. Once that’s ironed out we’ll likely get an answer from Tavares.

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