Rumored to be the day where he would begin to tell teams that he was no longer considering signing with them, Friday has essentially come and gone with no word from John Tavares’ camp. And according to Tavares’ agent, Pat Brisson, it won’t come tonight, as they are still in communication with all six teams granted interviews in Los Angeles earlier this week.
Pat Brisson the agent for John Tavares says they are still talking to the 6 teams. No decisions yet.
— SiriusXM NHL Network (@SiriusXMNHL) June 30, 2018
The Boston Bruins are obviously among those six teams, and Bruins general manager Don Sweeney was decidedly tightlipped on Friday when asked for the nuts and bolts of the Black and Gold braintrust’s meeting with Tavares this past Tuesday.
“Not right now,” Sweeney said when asked if there was anything he could say regarding the Tavares situation. “I hope you all respect that. I’m not trying to be anything other than the obvious with regards to it. To tell you the truth I don’t want to answer questions about it because [development camp] has always been an important week for us as well as the kids.”
If it’s any consolation, updates were few and far between, as Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman opted not to comment on his talks with Tavares besides noting that it was ‘more’ than an informal meeting. Stars general manager Jim Nill will not meet with the media before the end of the weekend, and there’s been silence from San Jose, Toronto, and the Islanders.
And even the league’s insiders seem to have been left in the dark here, as nobody can quite get a perfect read on the situation.
While the Bruins are happy to wait — especially with the hopes that he’s legitimately considering them — there’s no doubt that they would prefer to know where they stand sometime between now and when free agency officially opens on Sunday.
Until then, however, they’ll be left to do more sitting by the phone and Twitter scrolling.