Islanders News: Okposo/Martin farewell, Sorokin hello, Snow as Big Pauly, Prospects scrimmage

Islanders mini-camp continues today, free agent rumblings and flirtations continue all week, big boom signing news begins Friday. So it goes. But a new episode of Islanders Anxiety is on the way today to tide you over.

Islanders Reads

• The Islanders updated the mini-camp roster with the attendees from this year's draft. (Plus: numbers!). [Isles] FYI - tonight's sold-out scrimmage is a three-team four-on-four deal.
  
• Ilya Sorokin is in the Islanders' mini-camp, which is a pretty big deal for a player KHL-tied for the next two seasons, and both sides kind of want to feel each other out. [Isles]
• Everybody wants them some Kyle Okposo. [Puck Daddy]
• But we say farewell and thanks to the man who's grown up in lockstep with our survival as fans during this rebuild, which has now matured enough to see its finest pieces flee as free agents. [LHH]
• And Matt Martin gets that it's a business, and he'll fetch his reported $3-4 million per elsewhere, but he still wants to be part of this community. [Newsday | Interested teams included Calgary [Herald] and Detroit [WIIM]
  
• Speaking of which, you may not like Garth Snow's moves -- and may be downright frightened of what's to come -- but there is some entertainment and sense to his going about it Big Pauly quietly rather than Jim Benning "yeah we want those guys!" style. [LHH]
  
• Pro Hockey Talk gives the UFA treatment to Frans Nielsen. [NBC]
• Now here vote for the Isles hit of the year. [Isles]
• After being bilked out of millions, former Islander Bryan Berard is working to help other players not endure the same fate. [Nat'l Post]
  

Beyond the Realm of Our Tears

• So yes, anyway, Jim Benning's Canucks were fined $50k for him doing what everyone knows you're not supposed to do. (I guess you could look at it as a $50k spend on marketing to build fans? Except those fans already think he's lost.) [TSN]
• Does everybody want them some Milan Lucic? [Puck Daddy]
• Great read on Finland's steady and quite strategic growth into an international hockey powerhouse. [HEOTP]
• Granted fans are a bit overconfident about their evaluation of UFA contracts, but the availability of analytics and fans' raised expectations for GMs is ultimately a good thing. [SCOC]
• Kevin Shattenkirk still expects a trade, in part because Blues GM Doug Armstrong has been up front with him about the fact he's not paying him what they're asking so he might as well try. [STLtoday]
• Some potentially under-the-radar free agent forwards to look at. [Flames Nation]
• Everybody wonderin' whether Clayton Keller -- one of five St. Louisans taken in the first round -- will stick with his commitment to go to Boston U. or go to OHL Windsor instead. My advice: You only get to be an age-appropriate college student once in your life. You've got the rest of adulthood to play the part of dull pro hockey player. [SBN College Hockey]
• Trevor Daley's mother passed away, but at least she got to see her son lift the Stanley Cup, which provides at least one good thing to come out of the Penguins, um, winn-, er, being declared possessor of the thing. [Color of Hockey]
• ESPN has declared that Barry Melrose and Steve Levy will call U.S. games in the World Cup, making all of us a little less informed. [NHL]