The favorite son grew up and went away, and when he returned home for a visit, well, guess what? He was not welcome.
Shocker.
John Taveras spent the first nine years of his career bleeding the blue and orange of the Islanders franchise he represented with dignity. That barely mattered to the rabid fans who came to the Coliseum to celebrate their first-place team, defend their team’s honor and heap insults on No. 91, who showed up in Uniondale for the first time wearing the Maple Leafs crest after signing with Toronto as a free agent on July 1.
Not necessarily in that order.
“You’re a liar!”
“I expected it was coming,” Tavares said of the constant abuse, as he spoke in the corridor outside the Leafs’ room after a fairly miserable performance that pretty much matched his team’s work product in the 6-1 defeat. “No one’s walked in my shoes. I know that.”
“We don’t need you!”
“I just tried to be open and honest,” he said of his decision to defect to Toronto as a free agent after spending years proclaiming that he wanted to be an Islander for life. “No one has to like my decision …”
A fan behind the curtain separating the corridor from the stands called out.
“John, you suck,” the man said.
“… I just tried to explain my position and how I got to that point.”
“A–hole!”
The boos were constant, except when they were interrupted by cheers for an Islanders team that was faster, tougher and more committed than the Maple Leafs. Emotion was ratcheted up. No one needed prompts from the scoreboard or the organist. The old barn never held this much enmity for Dave Schultz or even Darcy Tucker.
Theo Fleury, maybe.
“Barzy’s better!” referring to Matt Barzal.
The booing began during warm-ups. It was ceaseless whenever Tavares was on the ice, and it reached a crescendo when the center was ridden hard into the boards by Ryan Pulock on a left-wing rush early in the third period of a game that had already devolved into a rout.
Or maybe it reached its crescendo during the video tribute that played on the board at 9:59 of the first period during the first television timeout. The pictures were crisp. The narration was drowned out by jeers. You’d have thought John Spano had crashed the party again.
When the video tribute ended, the Islanders tapped their sticks on the ice or banged their sticks against the boards in front of their bench. The Leafs gave their alternate captain the requisite stick taps. Tavares took a spin toward the center ice circle, acknowledged the Islanders — he had tapped sticks with Cal Clutterbuck during warm-ups in his only interaction with his former teammates — and raised his stick in salute to the fans who were making his night miserable.
“The tribute was nice, especially from the organization and the guys on the other bench,” Tavares said. “Just nice to be able to give a token of my appreciation for my nine years here to and everyone who supported me in the organization and on that bench.”
As good as the Islanders are, and might be, there is this unknown: Would they be even better with No. 91 in the lineup? Would they constitute a more serious threat to come out of the East and challenge for the Cup if the franchise had kept its franchise player? Or did his exit create a greater sense of unity and urgency among his teammates and create an agenda on which incoming coach Barry Trotz could capitalize?
Here is the thing: The moment Tavares decided to move on, the Islanders moved on, too. If Generalissimo Lou Lamoriello has a list of commandments, the one about the logo on the front of the uniform being more important than the name on the back is either No. 1 or No. 2, depending upon where you put, get a haircut and a shave.
This is the executive who, after all, has seen Scott Niedermayer leave New Jersey as a free agent to join his brother in Anaheim and Zach Parise leave the Devils to go home to Minnesota. Life went on then. Life goes on now.
This was not an ugly night on Long Island — except for the Maple Leafs, who are 0-2 against the Islanders while outscored 10-1. This was a night on which a fervent, abused fan base showed up to be heard. Rational was left at the door.
“It would have been nice to take a moment to recognize [the fans], but obviously they have their feelings and that’s out of my control,” Tavares said. “I just tried to show my acknowledgment of the support I had here for nine years.”
“We don’t need you!”