Islanders: Best Player To Wear Number 43

Continuing our best of series, today we will look at the best player to wear number 43 for the New York Islanders in their history.

Remember yesterday when I mentioned no man’s land. Well, we’ve officially made it deep into no man’s land at this point. In the New York Islanders history, only nine players have worn the number 43.

The wild part, nobody has worn the number for more than one year with the team. For the first time in 43 days, we have no winner.

Mike MacWilliam (I promise that’s not a made-up name) was the first to ever wear the number for the Islanders in the 1995-1996 season. He made his NHL debut at 28 years old and played six games for the Islanders with zero points.

Also during the 1995-1996 season, we had Chris Taylor who donned the number for 11 games. He had one assist over that 11 game run in that season.

After Taylor, Jason Strudwick wore the number during the 1997-1998 season. He was drafted by the Isles in the third round of the 1994 draft class. He wore the number for 17 games before being moved to Vancouver that season.

In 1999-2000, Mikael Andersson played 19 games for the Islanders putting up three points while wearing number 43. During 2001-2002, Trent Hunter had the number 43 when he made his NHL debut in the 2002 playoffs. He had two points in four games in that number. He did play eight games as number 21 before switching to seven.

In 2005-2006, Ryan Caldwell played half of his career with the Islanders wearing the number 43. He wore it for two games, he was a -2 with two penalty minutes. In 2008-2009, Andrew MacDonald wore the number 43 while making his NHL debut. That lasted for just three games, he’d switch to 47 the following season.

In 2009-2010, Marty Biron wore the number for the Islanders. He wore it for 29 games, the most of any player. He was just flat out awful though. In 29 games he had an .896 save percentage and a 3.27 goals against average.

The last player to wear the number for the Islanders is Mike Halmo, who apparently wore the number for 20 games during the 2013-2014 season. I have no recollection of Halmo’s existence, but he averaged 9:30 of ice time per night in his only 20 games of his NHL career.

So there you have it. That’s ever Islander who has worn the number 43 in the Islanders history, clearly, that number has some bad juju.