The Capitals kept Cristall until the final day of camp.
WASHINGTON — The Washington Capitals have made their final cuts of training camp, returning Andrew Cristall to the WHL's Kelowna Rockets and assigning forward Ivan Miroshnichenko to the AHL's Hershey Bears.
That leaves Jakub Vrana as the lone extra forward for the Capitals. He is attending training camp on a professional tryout, and it appears that from the looks of the situation, he could end up signing his contract sooner rather than later.
He is skating with the team at practice on Monday. Final opening night rosters are due at 5 p.m. ET.
The decision to return Cristall to Kelowna was difficult for D.C., as the 19-year-old impressed through four preseason games and did enough to earn consideration until the end of camp. However, him returning allows him more time to continue to work on his game and further develop.
Miroshnichenko also had a strong camp, but would benefit from more time down at the AHL level playing top-6 minutes than sitting in the press box as a healthy scratch.
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- Andrew Cristall can either make the NHL or return to juniors, and he's leaning toward the former
- Capitals ink Eriks Mateiko to entry-level contract
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- Alex Ovechkin discusses why scoring has become so much more difficult in today's game, not stressing over Wayne Gretzky's record