Islanders Bits: New uni numbers, Milner signing, Crus Rydberg happy

Several major issues that hung over the New York Islanders organization like a storm cloud were clarified yesterday: The free agent additions have uniform numbers and Parker Milner does have some sort of contract.

On the latter, Arthur Staple of Newsday confirmed what B.D. Gallof tweeted two weeks ago on the morning of the draft: That the organization has signed Milner, the Boston College goalie who had an up-and-down college career but finished with his arrow going upward the final two seasons.

The 22-year-old Pittsburgh native is not a hot prospect and he's not signed to an NHL contract, but the way goalies develop unpredictably this is another low-cost roll of the dice. Here's one take on his game. This makes five goalies on some kind of pro contract, with Evgeni Nabokov, Kevin Poulin, Anders Nilsson, Kenny Reiter and Milner in the fold.

Meanwhile, the Isles pointed us to the uni numbers of the new free agents, including the highest number ever worn in Isles history:

• Cal Clutterbuck gets 15, because his old 22 wasn't available for some reason.
• Peter Regin gets 16, worn in recent years by such luminaries as Marty Reasoner and Jon Sim, and once worn by some Pat ... Pat ... oh, some guy's name we can't seem to find for some reason.
• Pierre-Marc Bouchard gets 96, because he likes 96 and he certainly didn't have to fight anyone for it.
• Eric Hornick adds a little more perspective on these numbers.

In less pithy links:

• It's Highlight The Defense Day, with both the official site and Newsday running pieces on the Isles' many many blueline prospects. Hard not to dream about these guys competing and pushing each other.
  
• Did you say prospects? For fun, here is a ranking of the Isles top 20.
• No really, prospects? Here is Ken Dick's prospect camp talk with Viktor Crus Rydberg, where the young Swede talks about his excitement on Long Island and the reason he's jumping the ocean to play in the OHL. (Fun story about him learning of his draft selection too.)
  
• MSG on Joey Diamond living the dream by playing for the hometown organization.
• If you missed it earlier this week, official public statements on the whole Brooklyn running the Isles business operations thing.
• Not Isles, but several interesting Ilya takes: For the best [theScore] | Mother tells of taxes and escrow [Yahoo] | Puck Daddy's Wysh says he was never a true Devil
• In Lou We Trust looks back at Ilya's entire career, with special emphasis on Devils highlights in which the prescient Newark crowd responds to his goals by chanting "You suck!"
• More fun: Your monthly "who won the Phil Kessel trade" update | The LeafsNation
• Tyler Bozak says you Twitter critics can suck it.