The Islanders officially are Mathieu Darche’s to run. The team on Friday named the 48-year-old Darche — the Lightning’s assistant general manager/director of hockey operations — as GM/executive vice president, ending a search to find a successor to Lou Lamoriello that lasted nearly a month.

The New York Islanders hired Mathieu Darche as their general manager Friday, giving the two-time Stanley Cup-winning Tampa Bay Lightning assistant his long-awaited first chance to run an NHL team.Darche was named executive vice president and GM and put in charge of the organization's hockey operations department.