Dayton's McDonell Becomes 214th ECHL Player In The NHL
April 3, 2003 - ECHL (ECHL) News Release
PRINCETON, N.J. â Former Dayton Bombers right wing Kent McDonell became the 214th former East Coast Hockey League player to advance to National Hockey League when he made his debut with Columbus on Wednesday. The 24-year-old McDonell had two shots on goal in the Blue Jackets 3-0 win over Minnesota.
Selected by the Carolina Hurricanes in the ninth round (225th overall) in the 1997 NHL Entry Draft and by the Detroit Red Wings in the sixth round (181st overall) in the 1999 NHL Entry Draft, McDonell was acquired by Columbus from Detroit for a sixth round pick in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft.
The 6-0 and 200-pound McDonell began his professional career in 2001-02 scoring 25 points (16g-9a) in 28 regular season games while also appearing in three Kelly Cup Playoffs games for the Bombers. He also played with Syracuse of the American Hockey League in 2001-02 scoring six points (3g-3a) in 32 regular season games and one point (1g-0a) in three postseason games.
McDonell scored 38 points (14g-24a) in 72 games with Syracuse in 2002-03 after scoring 31 points (18g-13a) in 72 regular season games and two points (0g-2a) in three postseason games with Syracuse in 2001-02.
McDonell becomes the 19th ECHL player to make his NHL debut in 2002-03 joining Francois Beauchemin (Montreal), Zdenek Blatny (Atlanta), Joe Corvo (Los Angeles), Fedor Fedorov (Vancouver) Vern Fiddler (Nashville), Brian Finley (Nashville), Ryan Kraft (San Jose), Simon Gamache (Atlanta), Brett McLean (Chicago), Cody Rudkowsky (St. Louis), Curtis Sanford (St. Louis), Cam Severson (Anaheim), Mike Siklenka (Philadelphia), Chris Schmidt (Los Angeles), Jerred Smithson (Los Angeles), Tim Thomas (Boston), John Tripp (New York Rangers) and Matt Walker (St. Louis).
There have been 89 former ECHL players that have played in the NHL in 2002-03 and 24 of the 30 teams in the NHL have affiliations with teams in the ECHL. In 2001-02, there were 83 former ECHL players that played in the NHL, including 18 who played in their first NHL game with five of those playing in both the ECHL and NHL during the season.
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