Quoting: tkecanuck341
But there are numerous examples from all of these other teams where players choose these teams over other suitors. Panarin and Fox chose New York over an entire league looking to woo them. John Tavares chose Toronto even though San Jose offered him more money. Sure you can say he only wanted to sign with his hometown team, but that's the point. There's not a lot of NHLers from Ohio.
If it were just a few examples of players choosing other teams over Columbus, it wouldn't be that big of a deal, until you realize that no one really ever chooses Columbus. Gaudreau is the exception. Horton too, I guess. Most other teams have a ton of counterexamples.
I mean, sure, there's not a lot of players from Ohio yet that are signing in Columbus because it's the hometown team, but...that also almost never happens? Tavares was an exception, not a rule.
The reasons not to sign in Columbus are because it's one of the newest franchises in the league, hasn't had a ton of success, and is a historically smaller market operating on an internal cap. That could be any franchise, and the budget/internal cap is finally changing as the market grows. The only reason Florida isn't looked at the same way is because of the beach and tax situation.
Hell, far more players have explicitly chosen not to play in Canada (NTCs frequently list mainly Canadian teams) just because of higher taxes and tighter regulations, yet ~41% of NHLers are Canadian. Ottawa and Buffalo are far more dysfunctional organizations at the moment, and Utah would be on that list if they hadn't just gotten here.
My point is, it's never about legitimate gripes with Columbus as a destination, any reasons to avoid signing here for that reason exist in other markets in the NHL. There's plenty of good reasons to sign here, as we've seen with JG, Werenski, Jenner, Rick Nash (who's returned to live here and work in the FO), Cam Atkinson (who invested heavily in the community), and countless others. It's always disingenuous people trying to dunk on Ohio for some reason to feel better about themselves when in reality it's a great place to live and great hockey market with plenty to offer. The narrative needs to die because it's disingenuous and always applied in a "f*** you" kind of way.