Well, Shit

No Tavares.

On one hand, perhaps KC hockey fans should just be happy to get whatever we can as far as NHL action goes. But on the other hand, we're being used as a pawn by a fabulously rich owner in a political game that has nothing to do with us. So is it surprising that ticket sales are so weak that ticket prices have been slashed at the last minute?

Is sending Tavares - the one player with a little star power on either team - to KC so much to ask?

You can see why the Islanders are holding him out - thanks to some brilliant scheduling, the only Islanders home preseason game is the very night after the KC game. No way they're going to play him in back-to-back games, and the Islanders presumably would have suffered a backlash from their fans, who are already upset that the Isles are playing in KC at all, if they'd chosen the KC game over the Long Island game to play Tavares.

But isn't Wang's entire purpose for playing the game in KC to generate pressure on Long Island politicians? The not-so veiled veiled threat? Wouldn't placing the new face of the franchise smack dab in a supposed suitor city be the way to do that?