UNIONDALE, NY- Instead of a slew of comings and goings, the Islanders made just one anticipated deal before the NHL’s trade deadline Wednesday.

General manager Garth Snow’s only move was an expected transaction, as the Islanders traded Bill Guerin to Pittsburgh for a conditional draft pick. The Isles will receive no worse than a fifth round pick that could be bumped up to a fourth-round choice if the Penguins qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Should the Pens win a postseason round and Guerin appears in half of Pittsburgh’s games, the Islanders will receive a third rounder. The fifth-round selection originally belonged to Tampa Bay.

“The entire Islanders organization has the utmost respect for Bill Guerin and we sincerely thank him for his time on Long Island and as the team’s captain,” Snow said.

Before the 3 p.m. deadline, NHL clubs completed 22 trades totaling 45 players and 21 draft picks. But the Islanders did not make any more trades after shipping out the team’s captain. Snow held on to impending free agents Doug Weight and Andy Hilbert and also kept defensemen Brendan Witt and Radek Martinek, who were rumored to be on the trading block.

“As a seller, you can’t make a trade for the sake of making a trade,” Snow said in Room 6 at Nassau Coliseum, the same site where two years ago the Isles shocked the league by acquiring All-Star Ryan Smyth for a stretch-run deadline deal.

Guerin became the 11th captain in franchise history when he signed a two-year deal before the 2007-08 season. He was one of just two Isles to crack the 20-goal mark in last season, notching 23 goals and 21 assists in 81 games. He tallied 39 goals in 142 games for the Islanders, including career goal No. 400 earlier in the current campaign. The 38-year-old will be joining his seventh team after agreeing to waive his no-move clause to go to a Penguins team that went to the Stanley Cup Finals last spring.

“Billy brings that veteran presence,” Pittsburgh general manager Ray Shero said. “He’s a right winger with a right shot, and he can still skate. I talked to him this afternoon after the trade and I told him what I was expecting of him. He’s a goal scorer. Billy Guerin can play with good players and score goals – he’s certainly done that in the past. I think we have the players for him to play with and support him.

“He has size. We wanted to get bigger and we wanted to get a little bit stronger up front and I believe that’s a good fit. Hopefully it’s a good move for both of us.”

The move settled a situation that dominated talk around the Islanders after Snow pulled Guerin from the ice before Saturday night’s against Buffalo. Guerin skated in the pregame warmup but was not on the bench for the opening faceoff. He also was held out of Monday’s victory over Colorado, fueling trade speculation that had reports suggesting Guerin could be headed to Montreal or Washington.

“I had a conversation leading up to the warm-up and after contacting Bill’s agent and talking it over a little bit, it was in everyone’s best interest that he probably shouldn’t play and when I say we, I mean the three of us…really didn’t want to risk bill getting injured,” Snow said.

Snow left open the possibility for re-signing Hilbert and Weight and said he never intended to conduct whole-sale changes despite the Isles league-low 47 points and 20-36-7 record.

“We’ll do whatever we have to do to be better,” Snow said. “We weren’t going just go in and have a fire sale. If we identify a free agent to be as someone as we can re-sign, we’ll take that road.”

Last year at the trade deadline, the Penguins also made a move at the deadline before playing the Islanders. The same press room at Nassau Coliseum was where the Pens announced Marian Hossa’s acquisition, which propelled Pittsburgh into the finals. Entering Wednesday night, the Pens were clinging to the eighth and final playoff spot with 72 points and 17 games remaining.

“They’re playing great; I’m really looking forward to it,” Guerin told TSN. “I’ll just go in and be myself. They get you for a specific reason. The best thing you can do is just go and be yourself and support the leadership that they have there. It’s a great opportunity for me.”

On a side note, Guerin’s acquisition comes on the same day the Pens assigned former Islander Miroslav Satan to AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Satan was subjected to trade rumors last deadline but the Isles kept him for the remainder of the regular season and let him leave as a free agent over the summer.

This is just the way the sports business goes these days as Therrien took the fall for the struggling Pittsburgh Penguins, after leading his team to the Stanley Cup finals last season.

“I owe it to the franchise and the organization to take the steps necessary that I think are best, and that’s what led me to do what I did,” Pittsburgh general manager Ray Shero said about the change.

Therrien will be replaced by Wilkes-Barre/Scranton coach Dan Bylsma and it will be his job to turn around the Penguins.

The Pens are in worse shape than the Rangers. They currently sit tenth in the conference with 59 points with no sign of pepping up. But the Rangers are in a free-fall, with 66 points and sixth in the conference. The Blueshirts have just one win in the last eight games and some of the losses have been brutal.

Yet, none are as bad as yesterday’s 5-2 drubbing by the Philadelphia Flyers, where the Rangers let in a 5-on-3 shorthanded goal in the second period. The team is looking lost, and Renney may be the next coach to get the ax if something doesn’t turn around quickly.

“I take full responsibility for where this team is right now,” Renney said. “It comes with the position so my job is to correct this, get us winning, and getting us feeling better about ourselves.”

Renney is just trying to be captain of the ship and it’s not his fault that the personnel on the club have not jelled. This past summer it was general manager Glen Sather who gave the foolish contract to Wade Redden and Michal Rozsival has shown he’s not a $5 million a year player.

And when they signed Scott Gomez and Chris Drury in 2007, it was to have them play with front-line wings like Jaromir Jagr and Brendan Shanahan. As we have seen this season, neither can step up with the spotlight shine upon them.

Also, can you blame Renney for Sather signing so many back-end forwards? Dan Fritche was a bust and Aaron Voros has not become Sean Avery, who now may be back in a few weeks. Patrick Rissmiller was so bad that no team wanted him on waivers, although the cost would be minimal.

Frankly, the only reason why the team has a sixth place standing is the play of Henrik Lundqvist, who has been hung out to dry too many times by his defense.

Even the Ranger players don’t want to see their coach fall. “They’re not the ones on the ice,” Drury said of Sather and Renney. “We put the jerseys on. They give us guidelines on what our system is on what the scouring report is on what the game plan is [but] we’ve got to execute it. Clearly, a 5-2 loss at home we’re not executing.”

So you can’t blame Renney, but unfortunately he may not get a chance to turn it around. Although unfair, a coaching change may have to take place, with assistant general manager Jim Schoenfeld possibly taking the bench. A new voice may make the team respond in a positive way. It has worked in the past for a number of clubs, including the Mets last summer when Jerry Manuel took over for Willie Randolph.

It’s unfortunately if Renney does take the fall. He has done a tremendous job with the Rangers over the past three seasons and now – as this space has advocated in the past – deserves to have a chance to turn around the team.

But if Therrien’s firing teaches us anything, it’s that every coach is one step away from the unemployment line.