Sometimes you just have to laugh...

Well, the speculation can officially end, because its official; Mike Milbury is still very much in charge in Long Island. Yesterday he fired 40 day GM Neil Smith, hiring, get this, his BACK UP GOALIE as the new GM!!!!!!! Now I'm not saying Garth Snow will be a bad GM (probably won't be worse than Milbury himself), I'm just saying that there must have been more obviously qualified people, maybe they could have even hired someone that won't be taking up cap space over the next two years... Not that it matters much anyway, I'm sure that he'll just be Milbury's puppet. Reportedly, Smith was fired because:

'As I made clear at the press conference last month, we are running this as a business, incorporating the opinions of our hockey operations staff - including Ted Nolan, Bryan Trottier and Pat LaFontaine," said Wang. "Despite Neil's commitment to me that he could work in this environment, he later expressed to me on a number of occasions his philosophical opposition to our business model...Our fans should know that with Ted, Garth, Bryan and Pat helping to lead the way, the Islanders are in very good hands.' (Courtesy of TSN, http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=171632&hubname )

What kind of bizzaro world business the Islanders are comparable to is up to you. I think they're like some kind of panicky bizzaro world stock broker, buy high, sell low, and refuse to have any consistency whatsoever.
If you were thinking, as I was, wow, they still have some big names in Nolan (brought in by Smith) Trottier and LaFontaine, I hope you will now laugh hysterically, as I did, at the next piece of news.

Pat Lafontaine supposedly resigned immediately after the press conference announcing Smith's departure. Poor Ted Nolan. I think, if its possible, that this situation is worse than his last one. Oh well, as someone else said to me, he's at least one step closer to the NHL while working for the Islanders.