PITTSBURGH — If you go back and comb through the clips from the last time a No. 1 overall pick made his debut for the Islanders, when John Tavares skated 22:05, scored a goal and added an assist in a 4-3 shootout loss to the Penguins, it’s not the superlative performance from Tavares that stands out.
Neither is it then-Islanders coach Scott Gordon telling reporters, “Other than scoring the game-winning goal, I don’t know if we can expect much more from him,” nor the clichés about not wanting to force too much, too soon on Tavares, which could be copy/pasted into any story in today’s newspaper about Matthew Schaefer.
Rather, it is that nearly every story from the game focused just as much on what was then the Islanders’ uncertain future on Long Island as it did on the debut.
Here was a passage from The Post’s story from the evening of Oct. 3, 2009, written by Dan Martin:
