One day after shellacking the Boston Bruins in a TD Garden matinee, Jack Capuano is looking for work.

The New York Islanders fired Capuano, the fourth-longest tenured coach in the NHL, on Tuesday afternoon. Only three coaches - Claude Julien (Boston), Joel Quenneville (Chicago) and Dave Tippett (Arizona) - had been with the same team longer.

Islanders GM Garth Snow announced that Doug Weight will take over for Capuano on an interim basis. Weight will make his head coaching debut on Thursday night when the Isles host Dallas in Brooklyn.

Capuano is the second NHL coach to be fired this season. He joins Gerard Gallant, who was unceremoniously kicked to the curb by the Florida Panthers in November.

Like Snow, Capuano’s seat had been growing warmer weekly with the Islanders (17-17-8) buried at the bottom of the Eastern Conference. The Coyotes and Colorado Avalanche were the only teams with fewer points in the NHL.

“We’re not in a position where we want to be standing-wise,” Snow said in a conference call. “I think everyone is disappointed. Organizationally, I don’t think Jack was going to be a coach we were going to bring back. We can begin our coaching search now and not have to worry about the ramifications of that with Jack as our coach.”

Strangely, Snow did not decide to pull the trigger during the Islanders’ recent five-day break in the schedule, which occurred from Jan. 1-5. He waited until after a convincing win. In fact, the Islanders gained at least one point in 17 of their last 26 games since Snow gave Capuano a vote of confidence on Nov. 16.

Snow admitted the Islanders’ new ownership, headed by Jon Ledecky and Scott Malkin, had a say in Capuano’s status. Snow said there was some surprise on the part of Capuano.

“This is an organizational decision. It’s not a dictatorship,” Snow said in a conference call. “It’s not one person waking up one day and making a decision. It’s lots of dialogue all through the organization when decisions are made.”

Capuano, 50, compiled a 227-192-64 record in parts of seven seasons behind the Islanders’ bench. He joined the club in 2005 as a coach with the AHL’s Bridgeport Sound Tigers.

Capuano helped guide the Islanders back to respectability. They racked up back-to-back 100-point seasons, winning their first Stanley Cup playoff round in 23 years last year before taking a giant step backward this season.

Part of that regression was out of Capuano’s hands. Snow allowed homegrown players Kyle Okposo and Frans Nielsen to walk as free agents, instead signing an equally expensive and older player in Andrew Ladd.

Ladd, 31, has just 12 points in 41 games. He has six years remaining on his $38.5-million deal.

“I’m not hiding from the fact it starts with me,” Snow said. “One-hundred per cent. There isn’t a player on our roster that I haven’t had a hand in.”

Snow said he “doesn’t even worry” about what firing Capuano means for his own job security.

“I just worry about what I have to do on a day-to-day basis,” Snow responded.

When asked whether captain John Tavares, who can become an unrestricted free agent in less than 18 months on July 1, 2018, was advised of the change, Snow any person with any clout within the Islanders was notified.

Weight, 45, joined the Islanders as an assistant coach and assistant general manager under Snow immediately after retiring in 2011. He finished his career as the fifth-highest American-born scorer in NHL history with 1,033 points.

The longtime Edmonton Oiler captured a Stanley Cup alongside Ladd in Carolina in 2006, offering some glimmer of hope that he can get the Isles’ prized free agent back on track.

But Snow wouldn’t commit to Weight as a long-term solution, instead saying he will “look at everything.” For now, assistant coach Bob Corkum will move from the press box to join Weight and Greg Cronin on the bench.

“We need to turn the ship around,” Snow said. “I don’t imagine system-wise we’ll change too much. There might be a tweak here or there Doug might want to implement. At the end of the day, sometimes a new voice in the room can be a little bit of a difference, an edge, a spark for a team. We’re trying to create that and we’ll see where it goes.”

Contact Frank Seravalli on Twitter: @frank_seravalli