All of the stuff that has been floated by his stooges in the Toronto hockey media since last July has done nothing but confirm the belief that John just strung the Islanders along and worked them because the team that he professed to love was little more than a pawn to get the best deal possible from the team he REALLY loved.
That is not at all true. Everything that has come out, from a wide variety of sources, has only helped prove the opposite, and that everything Tavares has said all along is true.
There is absolutely nothing that suggests that he strung the Islanders along, and fabricating intentions and backstories in your head from nothing doesn't change that.
Did you notice that story when the Leafs wanted to make the deal different from what he wanted and he threatened to go back to the Isles? The Isles were nothing but leverage.
Or, way more likely, he had multiple teams that he liked and would enjoy being a part of, including the Islanders, so if one of those teams was refusing to offer a contract that made sense for him, he'd naturally go back to one of the other teams. Since it seems that Islanders were the next most likely team being considered, that would be them. It's called normal negotiations and weighing of factors that every UFA goes through.
Even if this story exists and is true, you're applying your own opinion of his intentions and motivations again, with nothing to support it.
Also, do you not realize that you're essentially arguing against yourself? To be able to use leverage, that leverage must be real. Otherwise it's not leverage. That means that if he didn't get the offer he wanted, he was ready and willing to go back to the Islanders. Which means that during the season when he had no idea about what would be offered to him or by who (when he can't talk to other teams and Toronto wasn't even being considered as a destination by 99% of people/media because of their upcoming RFAs), his most likely destination
was still the Islanders.
He actually thought he could con those fans and he was completely wrong because they saw right through him.
Good lord, the delusions...
Oh, and the incident I referenced was when Auston Matthews (who as we all know comes from a place that doesn't deserve a team because it doesn't snow there, isn't north of Chicago and hasn't sold out 3,000 games in a row) tweeted his support to Team USA (Who he, you know, played for at the youth level since he's from America) and his alleged fans from north of the border flooded him with angry hate filled rage tweets for having the nerve to support his national team.
I don't remember this ever happening, or anybody talking about it, and I can't find any articles or anything on google about it. Given everything else you've said, I have to imagine you are using hyperbole, and it was like one kid joking about national rivalries with Matthews on twitter.
If people were legitimately berating him, then again, it's stupid and shouldn't be done. That said, every fanbase has stupid individuals that like to talk on twitter. Naming individual things that some individual Leaf fan has said and we've all acknowledged is stupid does not excuse a large portion of Islanders fans from the disgraceful, classless behaviour they have shown, continue to show, and continue to try to justify.