His number indicates he’s much younger than the rest. He wears 91 because that’s his birth year.

By comparison, Adam Oates, Joe Sakic, Pavel Bure, and Mats Sundin were either well into their careers or on their way to North America by that point, and all of them were inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame this morning.

Sakic and Sundin were players during the last lockout, while Oates and Bure had just retired. And now, as Sportsnet‘s Michael Grange reports, the New York Islanders’ franchise player is as acute a manager and man as he is a superstar in the making.

“It’s too early to predict if a new generation of fans are going to have their own rude awakening regarding the business side of professional sports come this September, but this time around Tavares — having made it to the NHL just as he’d dreamed — will at least have his say.

“He’s the youngest NHLPA team player representative by far and one of the few cases where a franchise’s marquee player has thrown himself into the heart of the process of negotiating a new CBA to take the place of the one that expires Sept. 15.”

As Grange points out, Tavares was just a wee fan during the 2004/05 NHL lockout, when Sidney Crosby was still slugging it out in the QMJHL, Corey Perry was winning a Memorial Cup with the London Knights, and Ryan Getzlaf and Dion Phaneuf tearing up the WHL. Shea Weber was on the Kelowna Rockets, and Brent Seabrook was in high school in Tsawwassen.

Tavares’s game has picked up significantly since he lost the Calder Trophy to Tyler Myers in 2010. He’s an all-around stud now, and he’s the only reason the Islanders have a pulse. Hell, lucky for them the Blue Jackets turned down that ridiculous offer for the second overall pick. Columbus may be the only team in the league dumber than Long Island.

Good thing Johnny T is learning the ropes and manning the posts. After all, all that stupidity is contagious… when mixed with pride, it’s explosive.

We wouldn’t want it to cancel another season, would we?