Florida placed Zac Dalpe, Casey Fitzgerald and John Ludvig on waivers Sunday
The Florida Panthers Opening Night roster is starting to take shape.
On Sunday, the Panthers placed three players, forward Zac Dalpe and defenseman Casey Fitzgerald and John Ludvig, on waivers.
That leaves 15 forwards, seven defensemen and two goaltenders on Florida’s roster, which needs to be at or below 23 players by 5 p.m. Monday.
What does that mean?
At the moment, the Panthers have 24 players on their roster, if you include Brett Ritchie who was invited to training camp on a PTO.
The 15 forwards are Sasha Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Carter Verhaeghe, Evan Rodrigues, Sam Bennett, Nick Cousins, Eetu Luostarinen, Anton Lundell, Sam Reinhart, Mackie Samoskevich, Ryan Lomberg, Steven Lorentz, Kevin Stenlund, Justin Sourdif and Ritchie.
Ritchie appeared to fit in well with the aggressive, physical way Florida asks its forwards to perform, but an injury suffered late in camp kept him off the ice during the final week.
“He is very close to playing again,” coach Paul Maurice said following Saturday’s preseason finale. “He couldn’t go tonight. We’ll make a going-forward plan with him.”
Whatever that plan is, we’ll get a better idea in the next 24 hours.
Maurice said that, regarding Samoskevich and Sourdif, he wouldn’t keep the rookies on the NHL roster just for them to be healthy scratches or play a handful of minutes on the fourth line.
“They won’t watch hockey,” he said. “They have to play, so that is part of the decision process. If you can find meaningful minutes for them then I think it makes sense, but if not, they just can’t sit and watch. They might be here for the opening weekend, and maybe they’ve earned a place to be there, but it won’t be long-term watching hockey.”
On the blueline, at least for now, it appears Latvian defenseman Uvis Balinskis has made the roster as Florida’s seventh defenseman, along with Gus Forsling, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Dmitry Kulikov, Mike Reilly, Josh Mahura and Niko Mikkola.
Balinskis was given plenty of playing time as the coaching staff worked with him as he transitioned to the North American style of pro hockey.
“He just built from day one,” Maurice said. “There was so much thrown at him, a completely different style of game and our training camp was harder than last year, so there were five brutal days for everybody. And then after that first block, each day he got better and better.”
Brandon Montour and Aaron Ekblad will start the season on Injured Reserve.
