from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Scott Malkin takes the hit for the franchise’s latest debacle. For it was the principal owner who allowed John Tavares to hold the Islanders hostage throughout a season in which No. 91 refused to commit to an extension even while the clock mercilessly ticked off the final year of his contract.

Whether a representation of ownership naivete, arrogance or foolhardiness, the organization got suckered after Malkin forbade then-general manager Garth Snow to shop Tavares as a trade-deadline rental following months in which the captain and his agent whispered sweet words of nothing into the owner’s ears.

And now he is gone, gone for nothing in return, off to Toronto, where he can establish his legacy as an all-time Maple Leaf if he can help his hometown team end a Stanley Cup drought that reaches back 51 years to 1967, the last year of the Original Six.

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