Sloan Becomes 360th Player To Play In NHL After ECHL
October 22, 2008 - ECHL (ECHL) News Release
PRINCETON, N.J. - Former Dayton Bombers and Las Vegas Wranglers
defenseman Tyler
Sloan became the 360th player to play in the National
Hockey League after playing in the ECHL when he made his NHL debut with the
Washington Capitals in a 2-1 loss at Calgary, Alberta on Tuesday.
The Calgary native played 9:03 and finished with two hits, a blocked shot
and a plus-minus rating of +1.
The 27 year old played in the ECHL each of his first three professional
seasons beginning in 2002-03 when he had three points (1g-2a) and 22
penalty minutes in 14 games with Dayton while also playing in the AHL where
he had three points (2g-1a) and 46 penalty minutes in 39 regular season
games for Syracuse.
He returned to Dayton in 2004-05 and had career bests with six goals, 84
penalty minutes and 17 points in 43 games while also playing for Syracuse
in the AHL where he had two assists and 18 penalty minutes in 14 games.
The 6-foot-3 and 205-pound Sloan had career highs with 16 assists and 20
points and had 71 penalty minutes in 48 regular season games and four
assists and 27 penalty minutes in 13 games in the Kelly Cup Playoffs for
Las Vegas in 2005-06. He also played in the AHL in 2005-06 appearing in
four regular season games for Manitoba and registering an assist and two
penalty minutes in two games for Hershey.
The South Carolina Stingrays are the ECHL affiliate of Washington. The
Premier 'AA' Hockey League, the ECHL has affiliations with 26 of the 30
teams in the NHL, marking the 12th consecutive season that the league has
had affiliations with at least 20 teams in the NHL.
The head coach of Washington is Bruce
Boudreau, who coached Mississippi for three seasons winning the Kelly
Cup championship in 1999, while the head coach of Hershey is Bob Woods, who
coached Mississippi for four seasons from 2001-05. Boudreau was named NHL
Coach of the Year in 2007-08 becoming the first former ECHL coach to
receive the award. Woods was an ECHL All-Star selection four times and
retired as the ECHL all-time leader with 599 games played. He was named to
the Second Team Defense on the ECHL 15th Anniversary Team in 2003, and was
named Second Team Defense on The Hockey News' 50th Anniversary All-ECHL
Team in 1997.
The have been 104 former ECHL players who have gone on to play in the NHL
in the last four seasons, including a record 47 in 2005-06. Seventy-two
former ECHL players were on NHL opening-day rosters and there were 333
former ECHL players who attended NHL training camps, including 139 who
played in the league last season.
In addition to Sloan, the former ECHL players who have played their first
NHL game this season are former Wheeling Nailers and ECHL All-Star
Defenseman Paul
Bissonnette on Oct. 4 with Pittsburgh, former Charlotte Checkers
defenseman Steve
MacIntyre on Oct. 15 with Edmonton, former Las Vegas Wranglers
defenseman Adam
Pardy on Oct. 9 with Calgary and former Gwinnett Gladiators center Jared
Ross on Oct. 11 with Philadelphia.
In addition to Boudreau, former ECHL coaches working as head coaches in
the NHL are Scott
Gordon of the New York Islanders and Peter Laviolette of the Carolina
Hurricanes. Laviolette, who began his coaching career with the Wheeling
Nailers, led Carolina Hurricanes to the Stanley Cup in 2006. There are 18
assistant coaches in the NHL who were players or coaches in the ECHL.
The ECHL is represented for the eighth consecutive year on the National
Hockey League championship team in 2008 by Aaron
Downey of the Detroit Red Wings.
There are 18 former ECHL officials scheduled to work as part of the NHL
officiating team in 2008-09 with referees David
Banfield, Chris
Ciamaga, Ghislain
Hebert, Marc Joannette, Mike Leggo, Wes McCauley, Dean Morton, Dan
O'Rourke, Brian Pochmara, Kevin Pollock, Kyle Rehman, Chris Rooney, Justin
St. Pierre and Ian Walsh and linesmen Steve Barton, Brian Mach, Tim
Nowak and Jay Sharrers. Barton, Joannette, Leggo, McCauley, Nowak, Pollock,
Rooney and Sharrers all worked the 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
ECHL
Watch games live on B2 Networks, the "Official
Broadband Broadcast Provider" of the ECHL.
The ECHL celebrated its 20th Anniversary in 2007-08 and is the
third-longest tenured professional hockey league behind only the National
Hockey League and the American Hockey League.
ECHL began in 1988-89 with five teams in four states and has grown to be a
coast-to-coast league with 23 teams playing 828 games in 16 states and
British Columbia in 2008-09.
The Reading Royals, the City of Reading and the Sovereign Center will host
the 17th Annual
ECHL All-Star Game on Jan. 21, 2009 and the 12th Annual All-Star Skills
Competition on Jan. 20, 2009.
The league officially changed its name from East Coast Hockey League to
ECHL on May
19, 2003.
The ECHL has affiliations with 25 of the 29 teams in the American Hockey
League in 2008-09 and for the past 19 years there has been an ECHL player
on the Calder Cup champion.
In the last six seasons the ECHL has had more call ups to the AHL than all
other professional leagues combined with over 2,300 call ups involving more
than 1,200 players. In each of the last three seasons there have been more
than 225 players who have played in both the ECHL and the AHL in the same
season.
Further information on the ECHL is available from its website at ECHL.com.
• Discuss this story on the ECHL message board...
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