FanPost

Et tu, Brute?

Don't trust him... - Bruce Bennett/Getty Images


So it turned out that John Tavares was full of it the whole time.

He said he loved the New York Islanders franchise, its history and its fans. He said he wanted it to work out, that he loved Long Island. He asked management not to trade him. Management acquiesced, made a huge mistake in trusting him, and in doing so did not assure that the team would get anything in return if he left. When things got dicey, ownership brought in new management as the future of the franchise hung in the balance of Tavares' decision.

Suckers! In return, John Tavares stuck a knife in the back of the New York Islanders, with a twist not just for good measure, but to ensure death.

Hasn't this franchise had enough knives in its back? The Islanders have painfully received so many of them from owners, politicians, landlords. Now they get one from a player -- not the first, of course, but the one they called their captain. The one who professed to love them.

Et tu, Brute?

The New York Islanders are hereby declared dead. A franchise player has left via free agency, which never happens in the NHL. If John Tavares didn't buy into the plan -- a new arena, Hall of Fame management that could be trusted to do the right things to ensure a winning team, a world-class center playing behind him -- then no one else will, either. No player of quality will ever choose to play for the Islanders -- not that any have ever chosen to do so, mind you -- and the team has now been permanently consigned to lower-class citizenship. They've held that status for the past 25 years -- that's been the problem -- and just when it appeared they might become an actual, real, big-boy NHL team again, they were delivered the death blow that now makes raising their status highly improbable.

John Tavares just showed everyone that Escape from Long Island is the way to go, just as so many others have done before him. He is the latest to tell the entire hockey world, especially all of its players and their agents, "This is not a place where any of you want to be." In the end, John Tavares is a franchise killer. I'm not so sure that even Lou Lamiorello can change that.

John Tavares is the biggest name to add to the script for all current and future Islanders stars. Have you been watching and learning, Anders Lee and Jordan Eberle, and Mat Barzal down the road? There's a way out. Just say all the nice things and then follow the yellow brick road paved by John Tavares. Take the deal and just tweet your way out of town, just like Tavares did, tell everyone how much you loved it. Who's going to be the next liar?

You'd like to see the Islanders trade for, say, an Erik Karlsson or Max Pacioretty, and sign them to contract extensions? Ha! Good luck with that. They just got the same memo from John Tavares: You don't want to be here. If it isn't good enough for John Tavares -- supposedly a team-first guy and great teammate and leader (who we suspected might be a fraud and now we know for sure that he was) -- then why would it be good enough for anyone else?

I suppose it's apropos, given that the team is moving back to play half its games at the minor league (overflowing) toilet bowl that for a quarter-century it couldn't escape and whose operators prevented the team of any chance to compete at the highest levels of hockey. The Islanders have been labeled, for many years throughout the hockey world, as minor league. John Tavares is just the latest to stamp it #confirmed.

He said he only came around in the past week to the thinking that he'd like to go home to Toronto, that his dream of playing for the Maple Leafs was a sudden occurrence. He's lying. There's no two ways around it. He said he didn't want to be traded. Why? How's about some truth for a change: Not being traded would make for a cleaner break to Toronto. What if the team he'd been traded to won the Stanley Cup? That would have made it even more difficult to leave -- though given what's transpired it might not have mattered, because John Tavares has no soul. John Tavares is not the sweet guy Islanders fans thought he was. John Tavares is an operator.

Think about it. He manipulated management (not a difficult task, to be sure), first saying he wouldn't talk about a contract during the season and then asking not to be traded. Then he left the team he said he loved holding the bag. Then he said it was all about fulfilling a childhood dream. Does anyone really believe he made that decision on Sunday morning and then went running to his mother, saying, "Mom! You know that picture of me sleeping in Maple Leafs bedding? Do you think you can dig that up so I can put it on Twitter?"

One only needs to watch and listen to John Tavares speak to understand that he is cold and calculating. His monotone way of speaking, his lack of personality, his lack of facial expression, his inability to smile under any circumstances unless he is in company of fellow players. His overall dullness. He's a robot. One had to wonder about his actual abilities to be a team captain when things didn't go well, which should have been a bigger question during his time with the Islanders, and that question was answered during his news conference on Sunday. When asked about the Islanders' future, he repeated the exact words his handlers undoubtedly had helped him write for his Twitter account earlier in the day. Then, going off script to try to be more precise, he tried to mention Mat Barzal, only he couldn't remember his name. He stumbled, stuttered, then finally said, "The kid who won the Calder Trophy." Some captain, eh?

We bid adieu to John Tavares, who seemingly gave his all on the ice (except in the defensive zone and when things went wrong) but, in the end, nothing to the people who supported and embraced him and most certainly nothing to the team to which he owed information about his intentions. We wish him good luck in answering questions from dozens of reporters every time he turns the wrong way or why he sucks in shootouts. His knife is wedged firmly in the back of the New York Islanders. His actions should be a lesson to the new ownership -- don't ever give up leverage on a player -- and should not be forgotten by anyone, especially the fans.

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