The Skinny on the New (old) Guys

Both Colin McDonald and Harry Zolnierczyk are in the #Isles lineup today in Buffalo.

Zolnierczyk will be making his Islander debut, after paying 57 NHL games over three seasons for Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, having gone 5-4-9 in those 57 games; McDonald has played 124 NHL games, including 117 for the Isles.  McDonald, who played two games early this season for the Isles, is 16-20-36 in his career, with all but one of those goals coming as an Islander.

The two players have almost identical numbers this season with Bridgeport:

Zolynierzyk is 14-22-36 in 47 games, while McDonald 14-21-35 in 40 games.

Harry Z scored yesterday vs. Hartford -- his first goal in 12 games (Jan 9 vs Portland) while McDonald's only two goals in 14 games since the turn of the calendar have come in his last 5 games.

Zolnierczyk joins Yann Danis as the only former Brown Bears to play for the Isles.  He is one of 75 players with the last name starting with "Z" to appear in an NHL game; he replaces Alexei Zhitnik as the last Islander, at least alphabetically.  (Keith Acton is first)

Zolnierczyk become the 517th player in Islander history (471 skaters and 46 goalies).  346 of the other 516 have scored at least one goal.

According to the NHL media site, McDonald gets his #13 back, while Zolnierczyk will wear #16.

Forever1940 is the nom de plume of Eric Hornick, statistician on Islander home telecasts since January 21, 1982. Visit my blog: NYISkinny.com and follow me on Twitter @ehornick