panoo

16-year-old may force rule change
By Ryan Pyette Sun Media

The agents for hockey phenom John Tavares still want their client declared eligible for next year’s NHL entry draft.

London’s Brian MacDonald, a former Colorado Avalanche assistant GM, said the Siskinds Sports Management (SSM) team will forge ahead despite the NHL declaring that the 16-year-old Oshawa Generals scoring star must wait until 2009 to be selected by a big league team.

“It’s not (a setback that the NHL stands by the rule) and it’s only the beginning of the process,” MacDonald said yesterday at the Western Fair Sports Centre where Tavares and a host of other clients are skating in an SSM-led summer camp this week. “We still have an interest in pursuing this issue.”

The NHL has been asked to change its rules on draft eligible players in the past, usually in the face of legal challenge over age of majority or a unique situation such as the advent of the rival World Hockey Association.

But the Siskinds group sees Tavares’ case as falling in the language of the collective bargaining agreement and will ask the union to support the argument that the would-be 17-year-old should become eligible for the 2008 draft.

“We’re talking to the NHL player’s association about it because we believe the Sept. 15 cutoff date (Tavares was born on Sept. 20) is antiquated and doesn’t fit in with the present day player,” SSM director of sports Bryan Deasley said. “We’re not looking at this as a league vs. PA situation.”

The aim will be to push through an exception clause much like the OHL example in 2005 when the league granted Tavares the right to enter the priority selection early.

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said the league is open to listening to an argument for exceptional status but the difficulty would be in having the member teams agree to altering the current agreement.

“We have told the Tavares group that if they have a specific proposal to make we would of course consider it as a league, but that I wasn’t overly optimistic that the clubs would be receptive to making a change to our existing rules,” Daly wrote in an e-mail. “The CBA has very specific rules on standard player contracts and the type of contract you need to be eligible to play in the league.”

Tavares, who followed up a 45-goal OHL rookie campaign by breaking Wayne Gretzky’s league record for goals by a 16-year-old with 72 while winning player of the year honours, will be the favourite to be the No. 1 pick in whatever draft he becomes available. He is focused on his third OHL campaign this fall and another crack at making the Canadian world junior hockey team after being one of the final cuts last year.

“I’m not worried about that (the NHL draft) right now — I’m just going to try to improve my game and become the best player I can and everything else should fall into place,” he said. “I’m looking forward to my third year in Oshawa because it looks like we should have one of the better teams in the league . . . and to play in the (upcoming eight-game) Canada-Russia Summit Series this summer.”

The biggest argument in favour of Tavares’ eligibility isn’t whether or not he is good enough to play in the NHL shortly after his 18th birthday but rather if it’s fair to deny a player a chance to improve and develop while his peer group gets drafted, attends an NHL camp and returns to the OHL with skills learned from those experiences.

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Havlat

if they let him play 2 more seasond in the ohl u can kiss away every goal scoring record there is as far as the ohl goes. the guy is scary good. i saw him on a number of ocasions vs. the ott. 67's and he's lights out.

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Dgill

Maybe the kid should work on his defensive game than. First time I ever seen him play yesterday during the Super Series, and he did little to impress me. I found he was lazy, and can definetly work on his game defensivly.

We don't want another Ilya Kovalchuk here...

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Briere48

I've been trying to find videos of him on the internet because i've never seen him in action before but i can't find any.. anybody know where i could see some?

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Havlat

ya but that only 1 game and the team was all sluggish after the long trip and not the amount of practise they requered. As for his defensive game,ya it's no up 2 scratch,but when the guy scores 76 goals the coaching staff tend to look over that.

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MaCabe

Who cares how good he is, the reason the age limit exists is for physical developmental reasons not talent. If he gets prematurely shotgunned in the NHL it could prove desastorus for his career. 16 year old getting creamed by Jansson and all of a sudden the NHL is short another Ovechkin.

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Dgill

I even heard stuff on Tavares being not up to par defensivly before, A.K.A World Junoir's and Sutter on his ass during this years training camp.

If he was a smart kid, he wouldn't or wont let us this fame and potential get to his head and begin working on his defensive game now rather than later. He'd be even that much better when he reached the NHL and than he'd completely dominate the CHL.

I'll never consider someone too good for a league. No matter what your skill level is, there's always room for improvement. In Tavares case, it's his defensive game that needs to improve.

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hockeyboy14

I believe that Tavares is a special player, however so was Sidney Crosby and we made him wait before he got drafted. I dont think its right for a player to have the chance to move up his draft year. If he wants to play with men, he can go play in Europe.

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big_e

It's not that. Tavares is ineligible for the '08 draft by like 5 days.

By the time the season roles around, he'll be 18. That's why I think it's stupid that they're not making him eligible. Look at Crosby, he came into the NHL at 18 and he did just fine. An extra year in the OHL will do nothing for Tavares' development. He'll be able to score at will, he won't be challenged.

Tavares is a weird player. You can watch a game he's playing in and hardly notice him but by the end of the night he has 3 goals. He scores on almost every chance he gets. He isn't a very flashy player, he just scores goals like crazy. He still needs to work on his defensive game, but that will come with time.

Those of you saying things like "I've been watching the Super Series and he's done nothing!", the guys playing against guys that are two years older than him. He barely played in game 1 because Sutter wanted to prove a point about his defensive play. He'll get better as the series goes on.

And for those of you expecting him to dazzle you, he isn't that type of player.

Dgill

And he still certainly hasn't. Being not played because of his defensive game? Who's fault is that, Sutter's? When people say "he's too good" I think of a player who puts up very high numbers while being able to play defense at the same time. Tavares can put up the points, but he really does need to improve his defensive game before I'll consider him "too good". Tavares has put up numbers in a league where the age level is higher than this little series so age has no effect at all.

There's always things and ways to improve on that you can no matter what league or level your playing.

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