On Sunday, the Canes put Justin Peters, Zach Boychuk, Jared Staal, Nicolas Blanchard, Aaron Palushaj and Michal Jordan on waivers with intent to send them to Charlotte whose training camp starts Monday. Each of these players must clear waivers, meaning that any other NHL team can claim them as long as it is willing to keep them at the NHL level.
If my count is right, the Canes roster (including tryout Radek Dvorak) is down to 17 forwards, 9 defensemen and 3 goalies. The max roster for opening night is 23.
My line combinations before training camp started were:
Tlusty/EStaal/Semin, Gerbe (w/wild cards Rask and McGinn)/JStaal/Ruutu, Skinner/Lindholm/Dwyer (or Dalpe if he rose up), Bowman/Nash/Dvorak and Westgarth #13.
Since that still looks possible, I am going with it for now.
When you sort out where the team is right now in terms of filling out 4 forward lines and probably 1 (at most 2) more forward spots, I think 8 players had guaranteed spots (Tlusty, EStaal, Semin, JStaal, Ruutu, Skinner, Dwyer and Westarth as a #13). I would bet that Bowman and Nash have certainly won spots at this point. If the Canes go with 13 forwards, that leaves 3 spots.
Who Muller groups together in Monday’s practice plus whatever information he provides to the media now that he is back in Raleigh could provide the greatest clues over the next few days for how it all ends at forward. If I had any patience, I would just wait until about Tue afternoon by which time a bunch more clues should become available, but that's no fun. :-). Tonight I will take a shot at defining the open roster battles and probably after a couple clues Monday will do an updated version. So as of the information available Sunday night, I think the battles set up like this:
--3rd-line center. The team all but gave this spot to Lindholm in early July before he had even set foot in Raleigh. I think that is still the most likely result. But he has played in only 1 of 3 preseason games after being set back a bit in terms of conditioning when he was injured in the Canes prospect camp in July. I still think the 3C spot is his to win, and my hunch is that Brett Sutter and Jeremy Welsh are still in camp to be considered for the 4C slot (Nash would move up) if Lindholm does not work out or maybe is not quite ready for opening night.
--2 wing slots. If I am right on Bowman having a spot, then I think that leaves 4 wings (Terry, Dalpe, Dvorak, and Gerbe) competing for 2 open wing spots. For sake of analysis, the way that I think of it is that there is an open spot with JStaal/Ruutu and another with Skinner/Lindholm. For now, I build a 4th line of Bowman/Nash/Dwyer. But it is also possible that Dwyer or Bowman move up to fill 1 of the higher slots, which just opens up another that they vacated. So when you net it out, you still get 2 openings with some difficulty pinning down exactly where they are. Which groups of 3 skate together at practice on Monday morning will provide the next set of clues for where Muller thinks the openings are and maybe to some degree who the frontrunners for these slots are. Finally, I do not think Welsh would be considered for 1 of the open wing slots, but Brett Sutter could be.
The Canes have 3 days of practice followed by their last 2 preseason games on Thu and Fri. So what happens Mon-Wed and what am I most curious to see:
1) Special teams work. The penalty kill got a well-timed and very good workout on Saturday. The Canes took a bunch of minors, had many key penalty killers (JStaal, Dwyer, Hainsey) in the lineup and looked good. As noted previously, Muller seemed to pull him for defensive zone draws, but otherwise gave Riley Nash a regular rotation in the group. I am surprised that Muller has spent much if any PK minutes to see what Dvorak can do in this role as an experienced penalty killer. He probably won a roster spot and also PK work in the process. But despite looking good, this will get additional work this week. More interesting will be what Muller does with the power play. It has looked a bit disjointed so far. I continue to think that the team could be best served using at last 1 forward in the point position. Semin would bring a nice collection of ability to move the puck up the ice like a defenseman, playmaking/puck distribution skills of a power play quarterback and enough straight away speed to recover defensively on any breakaways the other way. The downside would be losing his playmaking ability from the half wall. Eric Staal would bring a big and accurate shot. He has not excelled in this role but does have some experience in it.
2) Who skates with whom. Per my comments above, the fact that certain players surely have roster spots usually means that players skating with them are being considered for the slots next to them. So for this week I watch:
--Are Skinner and Lindholm still grouped? This would seem to suggest that Lindholm despite getting a couple games off is still the front-runner to win the 3C spot.
--Does Murphy continue to be paired with Hainsey or someone else who will be in the NHL for sure?
--Who does Bellemore skate with? I am on record as having him as high as #4 on the Canes depth chart in terms of quality of play in the preseason games. Pairing him with
--Who skates in the open wing spot next to JStaal/Ruutu (assuming they are reunited)?
--And so on…
3) What the team does in terms of drills and skating to continue to work on moving the puck as a 5-man unit with forwards playing a key role that is not just flying up the ice at random and hoping the puck eventually gets there. This looked much better with veteran wingers in the lineup Saturday, but I am not sure I would consider it solved once and for all.
The next 3 days are important ones. The group is now smaller and much more of the work will focus on ironing system details. Coming off a season where the special teams struggled, the work that will happen Mon-Wed this week and then next week will be important in setting a systemic foundation. And then for the hockey-starved fanatics who like brain teasers we should get a couple days of cryptic quotes and practice pairings to be interpreted to figure out where Muller is with regard to the roster and line combinations.
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