"You look at my nine years there, we made the playoffs three times, we made the second round once," the Toronto Maple Leafs center said Saturday at training camp. "We obviously fell short of where we wanted to get to and obviously didn't have the type of consistent success we'd like. Being the captain there as long as I was (five seasons), I should shoulder a lot of the responsibility there.
"It's always something where I wish I could have done a better job, but I know I gave it everything I had."
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Tavares was reacting to comments made Tuesday by Islanders general manager Lou Lamoriello, who said the sting of losing the captain to the Maple Leafs as a free agent is tempered by acknowledging New York's lack of postseason success with him. The Islanders with Tavares won one series, against the Florida Panthers three seasons ago.
"There's no aftermath. Players come and go," Lamoriello told the New York Post. "It's different if they had won championships. It's different if they had had a lot of success. They haven't done much, and I don't say that with any disrespect. Haven't been to the playoffs the last couple years. Things haven't worked out the way everybody would have liked them to, from what my understanding is.
"So, an aftermath? There's no such thing in my mind. What the players we have here should be thinking about is not making the playoffs last year, and that's what the goal should be. Teams win, not players. Individual players win some games, but teams win championships. And that's what we have to create."
