Another link John Tavares has to the Montreal Canadiens

Selling John Tavares on signing with the Montreal Canadiens may be tough, but there is a link between him and the team that could help in negotiations.

Talk and interest in this summer’s free agent class have died down a bit now that we’re in the nitty gritty of the regular season. There are a handful of teams in an ongoing battle to secure a playoff spot, and the Montreal Canadiens are one of them. However, as long as John Tavares remains without a contract for next year, fans will always have their eye on him.

Tavares said that he would be willing to negotiate terms during the season, but there hasn’t been any news of any of that happening. The closest thing was the presentation of the plans for the new arena at Belmont Park. Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos tweeted out that the first showing of it was in Tavares’ living room, so you can tell that the Islanders are doing all they can to drop as many bombs of persuasion his way to get him to stay.

We’ve gone through most of the things the 27-year-old would consider in a new team already: location, opportunity to win, and money. As it stands, the Montreal Canadiens can offer him two of those three things guaranteed. Tavares has had an average annual salary of $5.5 million since the 2012-13 season. Considering what he’s done in that time span (169 goals 203 assists in 346 games as of the writing of this post) a pay raise is a sure thing, and it’ll most likely be a minimum $10 million per year.