Morning Camp Demotions (Oct 8 - Draft Day Edition)

Washington made a few cuts on Saturday morning, by placing Stanislav Galiev, Brad Malone, Christian Thomas and Paul Carey on waivers for the purpose of assignment to Hershey of the AHL.  Galiev would be the most likely to be considered a surprise, as he was one of the prospects that has been hanging around the longest and most would hope that would mean he'd be ready to take the next step.

The Capitals still have plenty of cuts to make and it would seem most likely that they would do a good portion of that before their preseason finale on Sunday afternoon, then the rest afterwards.  That might not help us on draft day, but I think we all have a good handle on who to take from Washington.

The Maple Leafs were running the biggest camp through the last week of the preseason, until Saturday morning, when they cut 18 players from their list, leaving 29 players on their preseason roster.  Among those cut today, which may have been looked at for pool purposes include: Garret Sparks, Kasperi Kapanen and Kerby Rychel, all heading down to the Marlies of the AHL today.

With all the cuts made today, my count is four forward jobs left among seven players on the roster, while the defense only needs one more cut.  In net, as expected, it will be Frederik Andersen and Jhonas Enroth, which should make for an interesting and fresh combination.

The Calgary Flames are about as set as they can be in their projected regular season roster, as they sent down four more players on Saturday morning, including forward Hunter Shinkaruk, who was in the mix for a final roster spot in a few circles.  Also going down was defenseman Tyler Wotherspoon, leaving Brett Kulak with a job on the opening night roster, it would seem.

The Flames are not any closer to re-signing Johnny Gaudreau, however, as their 25-man roster, including two injuries (Daniel Pribyl and Ladislav Smid) comes in with $5.7 million under the cap ceiling and Smid will add $3.5 million in relief, if they can get that deal done.  The cap space may be there, but the flexibility won't be if the deal gets done.