Considering it's the middle of July, there's a shocking amount of stuff going on around the NHL.
Mark Hermann thinks Joe Queeneville should be the next coach of the Islanders. Queeneville isn't a bad idea, but given the Isles history, my money is on backup goalie Wade Dubielewicz, whose playing time indirectly led to coach Ted Nolan getting fired, deciding not to play in Russia, and instead becoming the next coach of the Islanders. Because in Isles Nation, there's no greater honor than being the backup goalie.
Also, it seems like no one ever really leaves the NHL. Brendan Shanahan is still holding out hope he'll play for the Rangers next season. Retiree Jeff O'Neill might return to the Carolina Hurricanes.
Finally, the Minnesota Wild do not mess around. Forward Stephane Veilleux is trying to negotiate a contract with the Wild, where's he's played the past five seasons. Since the two sides haven't been able to agree on a contract, they put him on waivers. If the Wild were negotiating a hundred years ago, they probably would have shot Veilleux, so I guess the waiver move could be worse.

I officially don't understand the Russian leagues. Jason Krog, who just signed with the Canucks, supposedly had a seven figure offer from a Russian team. Krog took considerably less (he signed for $750,000) to play for the Canucks. But had the Russian team seen Krog's NHL stats? He had 21 goals and 37 assists in just under 200 NHL games. Even pre-lockout, I don't think those numbers would have gotten a million dollar NHL contract.
Krog is funny. No one wants to give up on him, especially since he's always played well at the AHL level. But really, Hobey Baker award or not, all the data says Krog, despite his speed and playmaking, just isn't a good fit for the NHL. And yet NHL (and now international) teams always seem interested in him, like they want to be the ones to finally unlock Krog's potential.
Speaking of contracts, Kevin Allen takes NHL teams to task for forcing players with no-trade clauses to waive them, mostly using he threat of waivers. That's a huge pet peeve of mine, and one the NHLPA needs to address in the next contract. You either have a no-trade or you don't. The conditional no-trade does not work.
Speaking of NHL contracts, Larry Brooks recently explained something I've wondered about: how does the NHL cap go up every year? Brooks' answer? A few teams (Detroit, New York, Philly, Toronto, and Montreal) make a lot of money. Enough money to raise the cap, even as smaller market teams don't make enough revenue to hit the cap floor. Brooks predicts certain NHL owners will soon bring up the idea of revenue sharing.

On the one hand, there's not much surprising about the Islanders' firing coach Ted Nolan. It was no secret Nolan and GM Garth Snow didn't get along very well. The surprising part is the timing of the firing. First, it was over two weeks into free agency and over a month after the end of the season. Why not fire Nolan when the season ended? Why not grab a new coach when you have the most options? And why not wait for Nolan to truly fail as a coach? Basically, it seems like Nolan was fired for acting like he won't play the Isles' youngsters, more than for his performance.
It looks like the Isles might have delayed firing Nolan in the hope he would find another coaching job. The Isles gave Nolan permission to interview with other NHL teams. Nolan didn't get any offers, though, perhaps because everyone was under the impression he already had a job.
In a lot of ways, Nolan might be better off, though. It sounds like he was really micro-managed on Long Island, with management even requesting certain defensive alignments from him.
The usual coaching suspects (Bob Hartley, Paul Maurice and John Tortorella) are expected to be given coaching interviews. I don't see Tortorella fitting in with the Islanders cooperative approach to everything. Hartley would be perfect to take the Islanders various parts and cobble them into cohesive lines, but I have to wonder if he's desperate enough to take a job in this dysfunctional organization. Moving from Colorado to Atlanta to the Isles doesn't exactly scream upward career trajectory.