Reading, PA – The Reading Royals of the ECHL, affiliate of the Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL and the Lehigh Valley Phantoms of the AHL, today announced that the team has agreed to terms with forward David Marshall. Consistent with team policy, terms of the ECHL Standard Players Contract were not released.
The Royals now have fourteen players under an ECHL SPC for the 2014-15 season. In addition to Marshall, the others are forwards Brandon Blandina, Kyle Bodie, Ryan Cruthers, Brock Higgs, Adam Hughesman, Domenic Monardo, Cam Reid, Kevin Walrod and Sean Wiles and defensemen Dan Ford, Jordan Heywood, Mike Marcou and Bryant Molle.
Video comments of Head Coach and Director of Hockey Operations Larry Courville on the signing of Marshall can be viewed at: http://youtu.be/sVR-wyesVXE.
This will mark the third stint with the Royals for Marshall (5’11/191) (29), who hails from Buffalo, Minnesota. He started last season with the Royals generating two points (1g-1a) in the two games he played for the team prior to being loaned to the Utica Comets of the AHL where he stuck for the remainder of the season. While with the Comets, Marshall scored two goals, assisted on four others (six points) and picked up forty-two penalty minutes, which included four fighting majors, in sixty-six games.
Marshall stayed in Reading for a considerably longer period in his first stint with the Royals in 2012-13. That year, Marshall was the third leading scorer for Reading, racking up fifty points (18g-32a) in fifty-five games with the team. He was second on the team in plus-minus, playing to a plus-20 (+20), and led all forwards on the Royals with ninety-three penalty minutes. His PIMs with Reading that year included nine fighting majors, which was tied for the team lead. Marshall also served as a shootout specialist for the Royals, hitting pay-dirt on four of his six shootout efforts.
During that 2012-13 season, Marshall had a pair of looks in the AHL—the first in mid-February with the Binghamton Senators, where he played six games. The second stint in the AHL that year proved to be the charm for Marshall, who was loaned by the Royals to the Charlotte Checkers on March 6, 2013, and that’s where he stayed for the remainder of the year. While with Charlotte, he recorded six points (2g-4a) in nineteen regular season games—and played two post-season games with the Checkers. Unfortunately, by the time the Checkers were eliminated from playoffs, the Royals’ 2013 playoff roster was already complete, and Marshall was unable to join Reading for the team’s championship drive. Nonetheless, as recognition of his importance to the team in the regular season, Marshall’s name was on the list of Royals’ players engraved on the Kelly Cup.
Marshall has recorded 36 points (18g-20a) and 114 penalty minutes in 200 career regular season AHL games with eight different teams. In 140 career games over four stints in the ECHL, Marshall has racked up 108 points (52g-56a) and 173 penalty minutes. Prior to turning pro, Marshall had a record setting four year college career at Quinnipiac University, where he twice led the team in goals scored and graduated from the school as the all-time career leader with seventy-three goals—and had accumulated the second most penalty minutes in school history (266)—in 155 total games for the Bobcats.
The Royals open the 2014-15 season on Saturday, October 18, at WesBanco Arena in Wheeling, West Virginia, where the team will face the Wheeling Nailers. The home portion of the schedule will kick off the following Saturday (October 25, 2014 @ 7:05 pm) when the Elmira Jackals travel to Santander Arena. Royals’ season tickets are currently available. Call 610-898-7825 for more information or log onto www.royalshockey.com.