For players sitting on the bubble, we are entering the most important part of this year’s training camp. In speaking with the media over the weekend, Paul MacLean suggested that he would like to have a pretty good idea where his roster stands heading into the weekend games against the Montreal Canadiens.
That means the game in Winnipeg tomorrow night is the last chance some guys will have to make a good impression. Some of them may not even get a chance to play in that game either with more cuts expected today. The Binghamton Senators will begin their training camp in France this week and ideally, the Senators would like to give a few more guys the chance to join Luke Richardson and the rest of the team over there.
Which means after today’s round of cuts, the Senators could be pretty close to the final roster.
Matt Puempel, Buddy Robinson, Jean Gabriel Pageau and Fredrik Claesson are among a group of guys that have actually had strong camps but will likely end up on the outside looking in when the final cuts are made. All four of those guys will play important roles in Binghamton this season and will be on the list of potential call ups should the injury bug strike in Ottawa at some point this season.
Heading into this year’s camp, we sort of knew there weren’t going to be many surprises. 13 maybe 14 forwards fighting for the spots up front and 8 defenceman battling for the six blueline spots. Despite strong camps from the likes of Puempel and Robinson, there just isn’t a lot of room on the roster right now. MacLean will still have a couple tough decisions to make including deciding whether or not to carry eight defenceman and of course, what to do with Curtis Lazar and Mike Hoffman.
Should be an interesting week around these parts. The game tomorrow night in Winnipeg could go a long way towards deciding the starting line up on opening night in Nashville next week.
More coming in a little bit.
