Siklenka Becomes 207th ECHL Player In The NHL
Published on January 29, 2003 under ECHL (ECHL) News Release
PRINCETON, N.J. â Mike Siklenka became the 207th former East Coast Hockey League player to advance to the National Hockey League when he made his debut with Philadelphia on Tuesday, taking one shot in the Flyers 3-0 loss to Tampa Bay.
The right wing played in Richmond each of the past two seasons and began his professional career in 1999-2000 with Hampton Roads. In 2001-02, the 23-year-old Siklenka scored 34 points (13g-21a) and had 111 PIMs in 55 games for Richmond and one point (1g-0a) in eight games with Portland of the American Hockey League. He scored a career-high 37 points (19g-18a) and had 117 PIMs in 65 regular season games and had 34 PIMs in four postseason games with Richmond in 2000-01. In his first professional season in 1999-2000, he scored 11 points (7g-4a) and had 62 PIMs in 58 regular season games and one point (1g-0a) and 15 PIMs in eight postseason games with Hampton Roads.
Selected by Washington in the fifth round (118th overall) of the 1998 NHL Entry Draft, Siklenka was signed as a free agent by the Flyers on Monday after opening the season in the AHL where he had eight points (4g-4a) and 134 PIMs in 42 games for the Philadelphia Phantoms.
Siklenka becomes the 12th ECHL player to make his NHL debut in 2002-03 joining Joe Corvo (Los Angeles), Fedor Fedorov (Vancouver), Vern Fiddler (Nashville), Brian Finley (Nashville), Ryan Kraft (San Jose), Brett McLean (Chicago), Cody Rudkowsky (St. Louis), Curtis Sanford (St. Louis), Jerred Smithson (Los Angeles), Tim Thomas (Boston) and John Tripp (New York Rangers).
There have been 58 former ECHL players that have played in the NHL in 2002-03 and 23 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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