UPDATE PART II (Electric Boogaloo)
The team enjoyed our last update so much that they released some more players from training camp. We’re starting to see them focus on the actual NHL roster and get an idea of which players are fighting for those last few spots on the team.
Going to Syracuse – Gabriel Dumont, Shawn Element, Tyson Feist, Ryan Jones, Max Cajkovic, and Jack LaFontaine
Heading back to their junior team – Cam MacDonald and Dyllan Gill
Released from tryout (but probably heading to Orlando) – Brad Barone
The roster in camp now stands at 29 players.
UPDATE (10.2.22)
Roughly an hour after we published this, the Lightning posted an official notice that they had trimmed their camp to 38 players. In addition to the ones we discussed below, the following players were also assigned to Syracuse:
Bennett MacArthur, Jaydon Dureau, Ilya Usau, Dmitry Semykin, and Hugo Alnefelt. We’ve updated the training camp roster below.
UPDATE (10.3.22)
Gemel Smith and Alex Barre-Boulet have been placed on waivers, meaning both are likely out of the running to be healthy scratches on the Lightning’s roster. But first, they will have to clear waivers and then be assigned to the team.
The Tampa Bay Lightning started their 2022-23 training camp with 56 players. After this weekend, it looks like that number will be greatly reduced. On Saturday, Sean Day was placed on waivers with the intention of sending him to the Syracuse Crunch. He joined Daniel Walcott, Darren Raddysh, Max Lagace, and Trevor Carrick, all of whom were placed on waivers on Friday and cleared.
With the Crunch set to open their training camp this week, it makes sense for the Bolts to start the process of moving the players through the system so that they have time to acclimate themselves (you know, find apartments and stuff) in Syracuse. Of the players that have already been placed on waivers, only Day was kind of a surprise. While it was always likely that he would head to Syracuse, there was a chance he could have latched onto the seventh defenseman role in Tampa.
According to CapFriendly’s transaction page a host of waiver exempt players were also assigned to Syracuse. Jack Thompson, Felix Robert, Grant Mismash, Gage Goncalves, Jack Finley, Lucas Edmonds, and Declan Carlile are all on their way north this week. Again, there are no real surprises in that list, and it will be nice for several of those players to get their pro careers going with the Crunch. Lucas Edmonds and Jack Thompson are two that have an excellent chance to make their stays in the AHL rather short ones.
With the addition of Roman Schmidt’s assignment to the Kitchener Rangers earlier this week, the roster in camp now stands at 43. After Anthony Cirelli and Zach Bogosian are added to the injured reserve list that leaves 18 players that will be re-assigned throughout this week so that the team can be roster compliant to begin the season. With a few days left before the next preseason game, the coaching staff will likely take the time to evaluate the players that may be left on the bubble (Cole Koepke, Gabriel Fortier, Nick Perbix, etc.) before making the next wave of roster transactions.
Thanks to the cancellation of the two postponed preseason games from last week there are only two more left (both against the Florida Panthers). At some point they will have to roll the players they actually expect to be on the roster for the season out there, so some of those guys on the edge might only have one more game to prove that they belong.
The names left in camp:
Forwards (18):
Alex Barre-Boulet (waivers pending)
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare
Anthony Cirelli (injured reserve)
Ross Colton
Gabriel Fortier
Brandon Hagel
Alex Killorn
Cole Koepke
Nikita Kucherov
Pierre-Cedric Labrie
Pat Maroon
Vladislav Namestnikov
Nick Paul
Corey Perry
Brayden Point
Simon Ryfors
Gemel Smith (waivers pending)
Steven Stamkos
Defensemen (9):
Zach Bogosian (injured reserve)
Erik Cernak
Ian Cole
Haydn Fleury
Cal Foote
Victor Hedman
Philippe Myers
Nick Perbix
Mikhail Sergachev
Goaltenders (2):
Brian Elliott
Andrei Vasilevskiy
There is a good chance that the Lightning break camp with 8 defensemen (with Bogosian on IR) so they might not make any other moves on the blue line. As for the forwards, it is a bit surprising to see PC Labrie still in camp, but he does bring a little more size to the forward corps than some of the other players left competing.
