[Bits] Obscure Islanders Draft Picks Edition

Happy Saturday. We'll start with some intrusive celeb-like stuff and then dig into obscure draft picks in the news. Sort of.

• In a story that starts off, or at least is headlined like, one of those celebrity-stalking gossip stories, we learn that Pat LaFontaine has a very nice house, but it's too big now so he is selling it. [Newsday]
• Pretty sure the Sound Tigers' and Isles strong (but carefully worded) language about having no agreement to move the AHL club is to protect all pending and future negotiations about it. [Conn. Post]
• [NEW] A theory by a guy at Forbes.com that this whole thing will just put the Isles back in Nassau [Puck Daddy]
• The Fort Wayne Komets have signed Nick Tuzzolino, a 6-foot-6 seventh-round pick by the Islanders in 2005, and an ECHL second-team All-Star for Utah last year. (Yay for summer news!)
• From obscure to more obscure: The CHL's new Brampton Beast have signed three players, including Jason Pitton, a 2004 8th-round pick who played in Bridgeport but was recently in Italy and Ireland..
• The remaining free agent crop is rather thin. Except for a couple of those goalies. [NHL.com]
• "Dion Phaneuf is probably an offensive defenceman miscast as one of the league's most depended-on shutdown players out of necessity." [Leafs Nation]
  
• Senators still in the news: Reportedly have lost $94 million under Eugene Melnyk, on the NHL "watch list" for dangerous financial ground, and there's that whole messy, circumvention-smelling Alfredsson divorce from the team. Some of their players are among the Swedes not completely ducking questions about the Russian anti-gay laws leading into the Olympics though.
• Oh, and one more: Is having a budget, as the Sens do, an advantage? At least versus teams who can spend to the cap and hope money fixes everything?
• Completely, completely OT but good longform here: Roller derby is "no longer WWE on wheels" and quite mainstream.