NHL

Islanders’ Tavares glad he played overseas

John Tavares thought it was too important to sit idle, too important to watch months and months of the prime of his NHL career just slip away as he toiled in informal skates and hoped for the league to allow him to get back to work.

It took a while, but eventually the young Islanders star decided he would be better served spending the lockout in Switzerland, playing on a team with his good friend Mark Streit, the Islanders’ captain and the captain of SC Bern in his native Swiss Elite League.

“I just felt at my age and where I’m at in my career, it was important to keep working on my game, keep getting better and be as ready as possible,” Tavares, 22, said Friday, his first day back on Long Island skating with a group of 15 teammates. “I worked on a lot of things and I want to keep getting better at them. I thought taking too much time off games was not beneficial to me.

“It was the right time and the right situation. Looking back on it, I can already say it was 100 percent the right move.”

So with the Players’ Association expected to ratify the new collective bargaining agreement by 8 a.m. this morning, Tavares and his teammates should be able to open camp with physicals tomorrow and hit the ice on Monday. That’s when Tavares hopes all his time playing overseas pays off.

“You try to use the timing and being in a rhythm as best you can,” Tavares said. “Certainly I’m going to try and use that to my advantage.”

Certainly, the Islanders are expecting Tavares to be the kind of player he proved to be last season, when he had career highs with 31 goals and 50 assists. It made everyone in the franchise even more comfortable with the six-year, $33 million contract he signed in September 2011, knowing the No. 1 overall pick in the 2009 draft will be the team cornerstone as they transition into their new Brooklyn home at Barclays Center starting in the 2015-16 season.

“I didn’t just go there for vacation,” Tavares said about his time in Switzerland. “I went to play hard and compete and help them win. I wanted to keep getting better.”

* The Islanders’ first-round pick last year, Ryan Strome, took the car ride down from Toronto with Tavares on Thursday, and he hopes some of the magic has rubbed off. Before leaving to play for Canada in the World Juniors Championships in late December, Strome, 19, was leading the OHL in scoring and showed marked improvement on faceoffs and play in his own zone.

It’s unlikely the franchise would burn the first year of his entry-level contract on a 48-game season, but there is a chance he could play the maximum of five games before being sent back.

“Obviously, there is a decision they have to make,” Strome said, “and it’s my job to make that decision as tough as I can.”