The Vegas Golden Knights’ training camp roster has officially been trimmed to 26 players. The team announced on Saturday that the following players were outrighted to the Henderson Silver Knights.
Layton Ahac, Tyler Benson, Jake Bischoff, Jakub Brabenec, Daniil Chayka, Lukas Cormier, Adam Cracknell, Jakub Demek, Mason Morelli, Jiri Patera, Christoffer Sedoff, Jesper Vikman.
Byron Froese, Mason Geertsen, Dysin Mayo, Gage Quinney, Sheldon Rempal, Jonas Rondbjerg were placed on waivers for the purpose of being assigned to the Silver Knights, and all cleared on Sunday.
The players of interest remaining in camp include prospect Brendan Brisson (waivers exempt), Pavel Dorofeyev, Max Comtois (PTO), and Paul Cotter up front, and Brayden Pachal and Kaedan Korczak on defense.
I’d expect both of those defenders to get re-assigned, and that would leave the regular 6 on defense with Ben Hutton as the 7th man.
That would leave the roster at 24 players, with only 23 able to start the season. That means that on the forward side the Golden Knights could stand to potentially lose someone of value, because only Brisson is exempt from waivers. If Brisson is waived the roster would sit at 23 with Comtois unsigned. If they wanted to sign him, one other skater would need to go and I’d expect Dorofeyev to make the final roster given his ability and potential. That potentially leaves Cotter as the odd man out, and it is easy to see many teams leap at adding a young bottom-six forward that scored 13 goals with limited minutes last season.
At this point nothing is for certain, but the front office certainly has some interesting decisions to make before the start of the season.