Harry Zolnierczyk has been re-assigned to the Adirondack Phantoms, the team announced Friday.

The winger had been with the Flyers for the past month, but he got himself a four-game suspension this week for charging Ottawa defenseman Mike Lundin. Zolnierczyk has already served two games of that suspension, and will serve the remaining two games of his suspension when he is called back up to the National Hockey League, whenever that is.

Here's how Zolnierczyk's NHL suspension affects his American Hockey League eligibility. If a player has been suspended an another league and gets reassigned to the AHL while that suspension is still valid, he has the matter reviewed by the AHL president, who, in his discretion, may deem the player ineligible. Remember Tom Sestito last season? He got a two-game NHL suspension and the AHL made him sit for one. However, per an AHL spokesman, Zolnierczyk has been ruled eligible effective today. That means he will probably be in the line-up when the Springfield Falcons visit tonight.

The Phantoms could really use him, because their offense has been pretty ineffective this season. They're scoring just 2.36 goals per game, the fourth-worst average in the league. When the move becomes official, he will tie Rob Bordson for the most goals among active Phantoms with nine.

We are 55 games into the season. You can make an argument that this is kind of a strange year with the lockout, you know, the guys who were in the scoring roles at the start of the season haven't been here since January and an largely new cast is in the top-six, but that still really should not happen.

In case you were wondering, the Phantoms franchise record for fewest goals in a season is 197 193. They did it once in 2005-06 in Philadelphia and then again in 2010-11 in Glens Falls. EDIT 3/9: The number I was initially looking at included goals the Phantoms received for shootout wins, which the league doesn't count, even though they are listed in the goals for column in the official standings.  

Thanks to the commenter who pointed out the error.

With 132 goals now, actually only 128 because of the shootout goals they have been credited with, the Phantoms would need to score 3.25 goals per game over the final 20 games just to tie that mark.

That's almost a full goal above the pace at which they are scoring now.

More before Springfield tonight.
-- MC