And then there were 32. The Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday announced they have reduced their roster down to 32 players after cutting 22 players from camp and reassigning them to the Syracuse Crunch, Tampa’s American Hockey League affiliate.
The following players, a few of which had positive impacts on the first four preseason games of the season, were sent down to Syracuse:
FORWARDS:
Tristan Allard
Cooper Flinton
Brendan Furry
Ethan Gauthier
Niko Huuhtanen
Spencer Kersten
Connor Kurth
Lucas Mercuri
Reece Newkirk
Milo Roelens
Gabriel Szturc
Of note in this group of forwards, Gauthier appeared in the Lightning’s match on Friday night in which they defeated the Hurricanes in an exciting 6-5 match. Gauthier had an assist and one point in the match. The assist came with about a minute left in the second period of the match to Wojciech Stachowiak who scored the goal that made it a 3-1 Lightning lead.
Allard got time on ice on Saturday in the Lightning’s defeat of Nashville in Tampa. He impacted the match early when he was part of assisting Darren Raddysh who scored the match’s first goal of the game about five minutes into the match.
DEFENSEMEN:
Charle-Edouard D’Astous
Dyllan Gill
Maxim Groshev
Chris Harpur
Tommy Miller
Matteo Pietroniro
GOALIE:
Harrison Meneghin
Meneghin got the start in the Lightning’s match on Friday against the Hurricanes. He was 10-for-14 in saves with a .714 save percentage. He was on the ice for 19:49.
In addition to the players who were sent to the Crunch, the Lightning also placed Ryan Fanti (G), Simon Lundmark (D), Scott Sabourin (F), and Steven Santini (D) on waivers for the purpose of reassignment.
Santini appeared in the Lightning’s second preseason match in Nashville and had an assist to Jakob Pelletier that tied that match 2-2.
Lundmark accrued time on ice in game three. 8:55 into the third period he assisted Stachowiak on a goal that made it a 5-3 game in a game in which Tampa went on to defeat Carolina 6-5.
Sabourin also has one point this preseason on an assist in game four to Darren Raddysh. It was he and Allard who helped get the puck to Raddysh who put it between the posts to get Tampa Bay on the scoreboard of that match.
The Lightning’s roster now sits at 32. Prior to the start of the regular season it will be reduced to 23, meaning for nine more Lightning hopefuls, their seasons will not start in the NHL and they will have to wait a bit more time to hear their names called.