The New Jersey Devils announced that they have returned Cole Brown and Kasper Pikkarainen to their major junior teams and released Spencer Sova and Zach Pelletier from their try-outs. This short post looks at the first cuts this year and the roster awaiting Montreal tonight.
Around noon, the New Jersey Devils announced their first cuts of this year’s training camp. Specifically, they cut four players. Kasper Pikkarainen and Cole Brown were returned to their respective major junior teams, Red Deer and Brantford. Spencer Sova and Zach Pelletier were released from their amateur try-outs that they received as rookie camp invited players.
None of the four come as any surprise. If anything, I am surprised Landon Sim and Igor Mburanumwe are still in camp. They are also on ATOs. It is not like London does not need Sim and McGill does not need Mburanumwe. Their cuts may be coming soon enough. The larger question is who will be on the plane to Prague.
The Devils have made it clear before and during Sunday’s preseason opener that the Devils will be heading to Czechia at the end of this week. This means the preseason for veteran players will be much shorter and you will see players play two or three games when normally we would not see them until towards the end of the preseason. This is reflected in tonight’s roster in Montreal – which will be streamed on the Devils’ official website and through their app. Here is the roster as per Amanda Stein:
Forwards: Cotter-Lazar-Bastian; Hardman-Dowling-Labanc; Foote-Bowers-Willman; MacDermid-Parent-Halonen
Defensemen: Sigenthaler-Kovacevic; Hatakka-Nemec; Vilen-Casey
Goaltenders: Allen; Daws
By my count, that is eight players returning from Sunday’s game. Lazar’s line, Foote, Bowers, the Siegenthaler-Kovacevic pairing, and Daws are all returning. Should the Devils follow the same plan as Sunday, expect Jake Allen to play the first two periods and Nico Daws to step in for the third. With Friday’s game being the last one for some of the Devils’ players to get an exhibition game in, repeat appearances are necessary. Per James Nichols of New Jersey Hockey Now, 26 players are allowed to go to Prague instead of the usual maximum of 23 players. While I would consider a number of tonight’s players to be locks to go to Czechia – Siegenthaler, Allen, Nemec, Lazar, Cotter – others are playing to get on that plane at the end of the week.
What this also means is that the Devils will likely keep their camp roster large through next Thursday. With 64 left in camp now and 26 having to Prague, 38 players will be eventually cut. But with three preseason games left after Friday, a lot of them will remain in New Jersey just to fill out the roster. Not to mention that it can be used as a makeshift Utica camp since AHL preseasons are usually quite short. I may be wrong but I would expect cuts to come in small amounts until the final week.
These four cuts were to be expected at some point and a few more will be done to return players to their teams to keep playing. The tougher ones are on the horizon. Who do you think still has a shot to impress? Among the players on tonight’s roster? Among the players not on tonight’s roster, who may play tomorrow? Please leave your answers and other reactions to this news in the comments. Thank you for reading.