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New Jersey defenseman Mirco Mueller had full range of motion and was conscious after being taken off the ice on a stretcher following a nasty, head-first fall into the end boards during the Devils’ game with Calgary on Wednesday night. Devils coach John Hynes said after the game Mueller sat up in the locker room […]

Ever since John Tavares tweeted, on July 1, a picture of his younger self in Maple Leafs bed sheets — ending a string of tweets confirming he was leaving the Islanders to go home to Toronto in free agency — 7 p.m. on Thursday has been looming. The Islanders are already 62 games deep into […]

Somehow, it seems unfair. It seems unfair that after rallying from two goals down, outplaying the NHL-leading Lightning through the final 40 minutes of regulation and sending the match into overtime, that the Rangers should have lost yet another in three-on-three as they did 4-3 Wednesday night when Victor Hedman took advantage of a pick […]

An open letter, to my fellow islanders: I come to you this morning not as a sportswriter, a detached denizen of the press box, but as one who spent dozens of nights — maybe a couple hundred of them — where you will be this evening, in that wonderful old building on Hempstead Turnpike alternately […]

They weren’t going to pay either player on long-term deals to prevent them from hitting the free-agent market, so each was traded prior to the deadline. No, this is not a reference to Mats Zuccarello and Kevin Hayes, sent to Dallas and Winnipeg, respectively, over this past weekend, but rather to Ryan McDonagh and J.T. […]

For most of the thousands inside the Coliseum, Thursday night will be about the return of John Tavares. For Barry Trotz and the Islanders, they insist it will be about a simpler, less emotional focus. “Toronto’s probably rallying around John right now, knowing how important it is to John coming back here,” Trotz said Wednesday. […]

After implying on Tuesday that Filip Chytil could sit as a for an extended stretch as a healthy scratch, David Quinn was more direct when asked on Wednesday if that was the plan. “Yes,” said the coach. “[I need to see] the consistent effort I know he’s capable of giving,” Quinn said before the Blueshirts’ […]

The thing of it is, John Tavares was about to stay. When Lou Lamoriello was hired to run the operation and soon after hired Barry Trotz to take over behind the bench, No. 91 was prepared to forfeit a shot at free agency that was just over a week away, an individual close to Tavares […]

The vitriol finally came down, and it came in abundance. And none of it was going to surprise John Tavares. The former Islanders captain, who left as a free agent to join his hometown Maple Leafs, returned to raucous hate in his first game back at the Coliseum on Thursday night. “Obviously I don’t expect […]

You can’t say they didn’t see this coming. John Tavares’ Thursday return to the Coliseum to face the Islanders as a member of the Maple Leafs went as expected, with boos from spurned fans raining down on the star forward. see also What John Tavares expects from Islanders fans in Coliseum return The vitriol finally […]