Report: European investors contact Pat LaFontaine about buying Islanders

European investors have contacted Pat LaFontaine about buying the Islanders. (NHL/Getty Images)

The New York Post's Josh Kosman and Larry Brooks report New York Islanders legend Pat LaFontaine has been contacted by European investors to possibly buy the struggling NHL team and keep it on Long Island.

Islanders owner Charles Wang, who is seeking a new arena and has vowed not to play a single game at the aged Nassau Coliseum beyond the July 2015 end of his lease, has quietly let it be known that he is willing to sell the franchise if the price is right, sources close to the NHL said.

Unfortunately for LaFontaine, who still lives on Long Island and is active in charities there, that price is said to be a sky-high $300 million.

Wang, who bought the team for $130 million in 2000, is reportedly losing $40 million a year, according to sources. Forbes ranks the Islanders 29th in value among NHL franchises.

LaFontaine's ownership participation would thaw what has been an icy relationship between the Islanders and their most popular player of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The NHL Hall of Famer had a falling out with Wang in 2006 after the owner fired Neil Smith as general manager six weeks after hiring him. LaFontaine, hired as an unpaid adviser the same day as Smith, resigned when Smith was axed. The team has not invited LaFontaine back since and has not voted him into its hall of fame.