The Jets had until Monday at 4 PM CDT to get down to a 23-man roster in compliance with NHL rules. After putting Jaret Anderson-Dolan on waivers on Sunday (who cleared today) it left them with 28 guys in camp.
The first move of the day was sending prospects Brad Lambert and Nikita Chibrikov to the Moose which got them down to 26. They also designated Ville Heinola as injured, non-roster and placed Logan Stanley on injured reserve to start the year which got them down to 24.
We were wondering why they would keep up three goalies but that mystery was solved today at practice as they were missing two-time Vezina winner Connor Hellebuyck who we would later learn was away from the team dealing with a personal family matter. This necessitated keeping up Eric Comrie and Kappo Kahkonen for the time being.
Which left Elias Salomonsson as the choice to be assigned to the Moose in order to get them down to 23 player and that’s just what the team did in order to ensure they are roster compliant for the start of the NHL season.
Once they know Hellebuyck is good to go, they will thereafter likely waive one of Eric Comrie or Kappo Kahkonen to be sent down to the Moose which would get them to a 22-man roster, since Scott Arniel said today they do not intend on carrying three goalies.
Based on how things looked at practice today that would look as follows for game 1 against the Oilers on Wednesday night:
Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Perfetti-Namestnikov-Ehlers
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Kupari-Iafallo
Gustafsson
Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Pionk
Fleury-Miller
Coghlan
Hellebuyck
Comrie
Kahkonen
What do you think of that lineup?
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