from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,
You know something? I owe an apology to Islanders’ fans for setting the bar so low before John Tavares’ return to the Coliseum on Thursday that when it had ended, I actually wrote that it had not been an ugly night at the old barn.
Because, and I knew it in my gut in the press box and even more so on the drive home after I had written, the venom and vitriol aimed at No. 91 from a crowd that acted more like a mob, was ugly, only I excused it in the name of passion and because, I guess, the game was not disrupted by folks throwing things onto the ice at their one-time beloved captain or otherwise breaking the law.
As I said, low bar.
I have written dozens of times over the last 20 years about how the Islanders’ battered fan base has been about the most abused in sports. Thursday night was an example of battered fan’s syndrome. The abused became the abusers.
And it is not that Tavares — never anything less than the quintessential solid citizen during his nine years under mostly amateurish management, the last six of which he played on a club-friendly long-term contract extension he signed after his second season — deserved more than hours of verbal abuse, even though he did.
continued plus more topics including...
Yes, the Leafs were without the injured Jake Gardiner and Travis Dermott on Thursday for the 6-1 beatdown on Long Island, but if you didn’t come away from that game wondering why Toronto GM Kyle Dubas did not supplement his team’s blue line at the deadline (even after jumping the market weeks earlier to get Jake Muzzin), you were probably the only one.
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