My roster prediction from yesterday was pretty much spot on except that Tim Conboy joins Joe Jensen and Trevor Gillies on the bus back to Albany. Twenty five players remain on the roster today, but Justin Williams and Scott Walker will be placed on IR, making the final total twenty three.
Both Paul Branecky and Chip Alexander reported that the lines looked like the following in practice this morning-
- Staal, Eaves, Whitney
- Brind'Amour, Samsonov, Ruutu
- Cullen, Bayda, LaRose
- Sutter, LaCouture, Brookbank
- Gleason, Pitkanen
- Corvo, Kaberle
- Seidenberg, Wallin
- Melichar, Babchuk
With the loss of Williams and now Walker, the Canes might be a little light on scoring forwards. Ryan Bayda and Chad LaRose are hard working players and are decent short term fixes on the third line, but in my opinion they aren't going to score a lot of goals. If Zach Boychuk doesn't work out the way that the team is hoping, I still feel that the team might need to acquire another NHL level forward if they want to be competitive.
Perhaps Boychuk can fill the scoring void once he gets healthy.