We wouldn’t advise amateur general managers — Fess up, that’s you and that’s you and that’s you, as well — to try this at home, but when the Islanders lost their best player, John Tavares, to free agency during the summer of 2018, they became a better team the following season, and the Devils who lost their best player, Taylor Hall, as part of a trade in December, have become a better team over the past month.
Now, the Tavares storyline has been picked to the bones since the July 1, 2018 moment the news broke that No.