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The Carolina Hurricanes’ opening night roster was announced yesterday, featuring 12 forwards, eight defensemen and three goalies.
The full roster can be seen below:
FORWARDS (12): Sebastian Aho, Jesper Fast, Seth Jarvis, Ondrej Kase, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Martin Necas, Stefan Noesen, Jamieson Rees, Jordan Staal, Paul Stastny, Andrei Svechnikov, Teuvo Teravainen
DEFENSEMEN (8): Ethan Bear, Brent Burns, Jalen Chatfield, Dylan Coghlan, Calvin de Haan, Brett Pesce, Jaccob Slavin, Brady Skjei
GOALIES (3): Frederik Andersen, Pyotr Kochetkov, Antti Raanta
INJURED (3): Max Pacioretty, Cavan Fitzgerald, Ryan Suzuki
The roster came with a few twists, most notably with Jordan Martinook being placed on waivers a few days ago, then assigned to the AHL. Jamieson Rees and Pyotr Kochetkov also made the opening night roster, while Jack Drury did not and Derek Stepan remains unsigned.
While this is the opening night roster, it will only be in effect for today, meaning the Hurricanes can (and will) make changes before their game tomorrow against the Columbus Blue Jackets. The key here was maximizing cap flexibility with Jake Gardiner’s $4.05 million cap hit on LTIR. According to CapFriendly, the Hurricanes have used approximately $4.04 million of LTIR space.
We can expect to see Jordan Martinook brought up before Wednesday, along with a contract in place for Derek Stepan. We’re likely to see Jamieson Rees, and Pyotr Kochetkov all sent down to the AHL. We'll have to see what the plan is for Jack Drury.
In the cap era, maintaining flexibility is crucial and while having to put Martinook on waivers to do this was a small risk, it’ll pay off for the Hurricanes.
Carolina will open their season tomorrow at home against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
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