By Ashkon Baharlou
Saturday, September 26, 2026. Three days to opening night.
ATLANTIC
Boston. The preseason closed with a 3-2 overtime loss in Washington on Friday — Jordan Kyrou won it eleven seconds into the extra session, and the Capitals' power play went a perfect three for three. Coach Marco Sturm's parting note was the kid line: Marat Khusnutdinov, James Hagens and Fraser Minten played together as the most likely opening-night trio. The cuts came Saturday morning — Lukas Reichel and Alex Steeves on waivers, defenseman Ty Gallagher to Providence — leaving thirty-one players, and the team had the day off before Sunday's 10:30am skate. The opener is Tuesday against the Rangers at TD Garden.
Buffalo. The crease is the story. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen left Saturday's 3-1 preseason-closing loss to Pittsburgh at 3:47 of the third with a lower-body tweak — "he tweaked something and we just got him off," Lindy Ruff said — and Alex Lyon will miss at least a few more days with his upper-body injury, leaving Colten Ellis as the only healthy rostered goalie. Ellis has been the best of the group anyway: .932 across four preseason appearances, all six shots stopped in relief Saturday. Matt Grzelcyk signed Friday (one year, $850K) and debuted Saturday as cover for Mattias Samuelsson, who is week-to-week and playing the pain-tolerance game, and Olof Zellweger, now skating out of concussion protocol and likely ready next week. Friday's cuts took the roster to twenty-nine, and the twenty-three-man roster has to be set by Monday. Ruff locked in his power-play groups to open the season: Doan-Thompson-Benson-Quinn-Dahlin on unit one, Helenius-McLeod-Ostlund-Norris-Power on unit two. Jason Zucker, still out from his offseason sports-hernia surgery, could miss the first couple weeks.
Detroit. Dylan Larkin skated Friday but not on a regular line, and the decision came down the same day: out for Saturday's preseason finale against Columbus, so the entire four-game preseason went by without him. The opener is Friday against the Rangers, and that's now the real deadline for an upper-body injury that cost him the start of camp. The model's read is that this is the team's pressure point — Larkin is an 82nd-percentile Strong driver with strong Whistle winner, Green light and Dual threat tags, 9 goals on 125 shots at 5v5 last season, winning 51.3 percent of his draws. Elsewhere Friday: the locked defense group is Seider, Edvinsson (still the unsigned restricted free agent), Chiarot, Faulk and Johansson; Jacob Bernard-Docker is day-to-day with an upper-body injury; and Carter Mazur gets his last look Saturday with Mason Appleton at the veteran two-game limit — Mazur's own camp phrasing was "do or die." The Red Wings also claimed defenseman Andreas Englund off waivers from Calgary on Saturday.
Florida. Camp is done — the final practice ran Friday, the preseason finale goes Saturday at six against Tampa, and the first cuts came down: Toby Bjornfot, Casey Fitzgerald and Angus Crookshank on waivers. Thursday's 5-3 win in Tampa was the best outing of camp: Cole Reinhardt scored twice for his third preseason goal, Sam Reinhart and Cole Schwindt had multi-point games, twenty-one-year-old St. Martin scored in his preseason debut, the penalty kill went four for four, and Alexander Petrovic led the defense with 24:03. The injury picture is the cloud over everything: captain Aleksander Barkov needed help off the ice after a non-contact drill on Thursday with what looked like a right leg injury, Matthew Tkachuk is out until at least December after surgery, and Tomas Nosek is out multiple months after lower-body surgery.
Montreal. The preseason finale is a split squad against Ottawa on Saturday night — seven o'clock, both rinks — and the Canadiens are a perfect three and oh, with two of the wins coming in overtime on Cole Caufield goals. The Bell Centre group has Caufield-Suzuki-Kreider up top and a new second line of Newhook-Danault-Slafkovsky, with Matheson-Dobson and Carrier-Mittelstadt on defense and Samuel Montembeault and Jacob Fowler in net for the last backup audition behind Jakub Dobes. Twelve players went to Laval on Friday, with another round of cuts expected after Saturday's games. Kaiden Guhle practiced fully without a non-contact jersey but St-Louis said he is most likely not starting the season — the early end of his timeline lands around October 14 to 21 — and David Reinbacher and Adam Engstrom have made real cases in his absence.
Ottawa. The Senators replaced the goalie they lost on waivers within hours: Jonas Johansson came over from Tampa Bay for future considerations on Friday night after Vancouver claimed Leevi Merilainen. Johansson was 11-10-2 with a 3.29 goals-against average as Tampa's backup last season, and with Linus Ullmark and Sam Ersson in place, the top three creases are now all Swedish. The bad news is on the blue-line pipeline: 2026 fifth-rounder Harris Pangretitsch needs shoulder surgery and is out four to five months. On the ice, Philip Tomasino keeps pushing — he's skating with Shane Pinto and Nick Cousins and forcing a decision on a bottom-six spot. The split-squad finale against Montreal is Saturday, and the regular season opens October third against Toronto.
Tampa Bay. The Lightning made the Johansson trade official Friday, ending his three-year run as Vasilevskiy's backup; Dennis Hildeby, acquired from Toronto this summer, made him expendable. Friday also brought the big trim: twenty-one players cut, roster down to thirty-seven, with PTOs like Luke Glendening and Kole Lind released and Simon Lundmark, Olivier Rodrigue and Steven Santini on waivers. Saturday's finale at Florida is mostly prospects with a few veterans — the last shift for the bubble group — before the opener Thursday at Madison Square Garden and cap compliance on Tuesday. The standout of camp has been prospect Sam O'Reilly, with a goal and an assist in three games while Yanni Gourde and Dominic James are unavailable to start the season.
Toronto. The Leafs ditched Muskoka for Arizona — golf Friday, dinner at Auston Matthews' offseason home, and a Saturday practice at Arizona State's Mullett Arena, the old Coyotes barn. Before the skate the team spent time with the family of Matthew Mayich, the twenty-one-year-old Blues prospect and ASU defenseman hospitalized since August 20 after collapsing from heat stroke at an outdoor workout; the players wore shirts and hats with his initials and number 27. On the roster front, Thursday's second wave of cuts put eight players on waivers for the Marlies and sent ten more down, with nineteen-year-old Tinus Luc Koblar headed back to Rogle in Sweden. The NHL.com season preview laid the backdrop bare: thirty-two wins and eighth in the Atlantic last season, a new first-year coach in Jim Hiller, a new GM in John Chayka with Mats Sundin advising, and a long list of new faces — Bobrovsky, Darren Raddysh, Emil Andrae, Gavin McKenna, Nick Paul, Jack Roslovic, Teddy Blueger, Colton Sissons and Brandon Duhaime. The opener is Tuesday at home against Montreal.
METROPOLITAN
Carolina. The defending champs closed their preseason by hanging six on Nashville on Saturday — Jackson Blake, Jordan Martinook, Nikolaj Ehlers, Logan Stankoven (his third goal in two games), Mark Jankowski and Andrei Svechnikov, with Brandon Bussi stopping all twenty-two shots — and the regulars were back for the first time since June. The roster is down to twenty-seven: sixteen forwards, eight defensemen, three goalies, with two blue-line spots still open among Charles Alexis Legault, Mike Reilly and Juuso Valimaki. The off-ice story keeps escalating: restricted free agent Alexander Nikishin fired his representation and hired Paul Theofanous, per Pierre LeBrun, which is the move you make when the standoff isn't working. The model's profile on the asset in dispute is instructive — 43rd percentile, but with an elite Puck driver tag plus strong Puck mover, Cycle player and Point cannon tags, 91 shots and 6.5 expected goals at 5v5 last season. Pyotr Kochetkov signed an extension keeping the Kochetkov-Andersen tandem together three more years at under six million combined.
Columbus. The Blue Jackets iced a projected NHL lineup in Detroit on Saturday night and were up three nothing early in the second: Marchenko-Sillinger-Johnson, Nichushkin-Monahan-Garland, Heinen-Coyle-Olivier, Lomberg-Del Bel Belluz-Williams, with Werenski-Mateychuk and Soucy-Provorov behind Jet Greaves. Friday's moves were the financial kind — five players to Cleveland, and Isac Lundestrom plus Elvis Merzlikins to the injured non-roster list, almost certainly long-term injured reserve, freeing the cap room Adam Fantilli's six-year, eighty-two-and-a-half-million-dollar deal pushed them about one-point-two million over. Dante Fabbro went on injured reserve with an upper-body injury, and Erik Gudbranson moves up. The Fantilli signing, done September 24 after he held out the first week of camp, is the contract that made all of Friday's math necessary.
New Jersey. The Devils' camp has a new favorite: Amadeus Lombardi scored the late tying goal against the Rangers on Thursday, is skating with Connor Brown and Cody Glass, and has Sheldon Keefe's public praise for a bottom-six spot. The injury news is worse — Seamus Casey left Thursday's game on an awkward second-period collision and is going to miss some time, Johnny Kovacevic is out with a lower-body injury, and Nick Bjugstad's torn pec costs him four to six months after surgery. Saturday's finale at the Islanders is the dress rehearsal, with Jake Allen scheduled for the full sixty minutes; Thursday's 4-3 shootout loss to the Rangers had Noesen and Ethan Edwards scoring before Lombardi's late equalizer. The Friday cut wave took the camp group down hard, with Nico Daws resting and David Rittich — twenty-three of twenty-four in the September 20 win — making his case behind him.
New York Islanders. Friday's 6-1 loss to the Rangers doubled as the return of the second pair: Alexander Romanov played his first NHL game since last November's season-ending shoulder injury — twenty minutes and twenty-four seconds, five blocked shots — and Ryan Pulock his first game since offseason shoulder surgery, both finishing minus-three. The model barely has a read on last season's Romanov — 30th percentile, fifteen games and two hundred forty-three minutes of 5v5 — which is the honest context for the trade chatter circling him and for Pete DeBoer's patience with the third-pair battle, where Isaiah George's rough night pushed Scott Mayfield into the lead for the sixth spot next to Tony DeAngelo. Friday's cuts put Mitchell Chaffee, Pierre Engvall, Liam Foudy, Daylan Kuefler and Matt Luff on waivers for Hamilton. Saturday's finale hosts New Jersey with Ilya Sorokin playing the full game and Mathew Barzal still out.
New York Rangers. The preseason ended the way the blockbuster summer was supposed to: a 6-1 win over the Islanders on Friday with six different goal scorers, thirteen of eighteen skaters on the scoresheet, Adam Fox with three assists, Mika Zibanejad, J.T. Miller and Pavel Dorofeyev with two points each, and a perfect penalty kill. Zibanejad's model line backs up the billing — 67th percentile, a Strong driver with Dual threat, Finisher, Secondary scorer, Faceoff specialist and Zone entry threat tags, 16 goals and 27 takeaways at 5v5 in eighty-one games. The roster is down to thirty-two with Anton Blidh, Glenn Gawdin, Marc Del Gaizo and William Trudeau on waivers; Trudeau was claimed by Nashville on Saturday. The remaining battles are real: eighteen-year-old Alberts Smits looks like he earned a spot, Matt Rempe (eight hits Thursday) is fighting Taylor Raddysh and Jaroslav Chmelar for the last forward job, and Joonas Korpisalo and Dylan Garand are dueling for the backup job behind Igor Shesterkin. Dorofeyev — seventy-two goals over the last two seasons — has skated with Miller and Oliver Bjorkstrand all camp and played Friday like he belongs there, while Gabe Perreault cemented himself on the top line with Zibanejad and Alexis Lafreniere and scored Friday. The opener is Tuesday against Boston.
Philadelphia. The roster is down to twenty-six and Danny Briere's message on David Jiricek was unambiguous — he didn't lose his job, he starts on the NHL roster — even if Saturday's finale against Washington was ugly (a turnover led to the go-ahead goal, a high-sticking penalty led to a power-play goal, minus-three). In net, Dan Vladar skated for an hour Saturday morning with his upper-body injury, progressing daily and expected for Wednesday's opener against Pittsburgh; Joseph Woll rotated reps with him. Denver Barkey is day-to-day with a lower body and his opener status is uncertain. The Flyers warmed up Saturday with their jerseys tucked in, in solidarity with Trevor Zegras, who was penalized Thursday for improperly wearing his equipment — the league is cracking down on jersey tucks this season.
Pittsburgh. The surprise of Friday's cuts was Avery Hayes — five NHL goals in fourteen games last season, gone to Wilkes-Barre anyway, because Dan Muse said other guys are ahead of him. The finale answered with a 3-1 win at Buffalo on Saturday: two goals were overturned on challenges, but the Nick Robertson-Sidney Crosby-Rickard Rakell line drove two of the three that counted, Crosby scoring on a first-period slapshot, with the Ville Koivunen-Hendrix Lapierre-Bryan Rust line producing the other. Koivunen surviving camp is one of its best developments; the goalie battle behind Arturs Silovs is down to Sergei Murashov versus Joel Blomqvist. Blake Lizotte never participated in camp with his upper-body injury. The opener is September 30 in Philadelphia.
Washington. The dress rehearsal went exactly as designed: a 3-2 overtime win over Boston on Friday, Jordan Kyrou winning it eleven seconds into overtime, and the revamped power play going three for three under new coach Ray Bennett. The model's card on Kyrou is the loudest of the day — 98th percentile, an Elite driver with two-way type, strong Playmaker, Secondary scorer, Green light, Dual threat, Two-way player, Play driver and Suppressor tags, 12 goals on 133 shots with 15.8 expected goals at 5v5 in seventy-two games. The 1B unit — Ryan Leonard, Cole Hutson, Ilya Protas, Kyrou and Alex Tuch — generated looks all night with Hutson leading from the point. Saturday's finale in Philadelphia was the young group, with veteran Justin Holl waived to Hershey and Charlie Lindgren starting. Alex Ovechkin sat out the rest of the preseason as a precaution with his day-to-day lower-body injury; Spencer Carbery said he's not worried, and the opener is October second at Carolina.
CENTRAL
Chicago. Friday's cuts sent Sacha Boisvert, AJ Spellacy and Connor Mylymok to Rockford, trimming the camp roster to twenty-nine — seventeen forwards, nine defensemen, three goalies. Spellacy's exit had some noise attached: he was ejected for head-butting in Thursday's 1-0 preseason loss at St. Louis, where Boisvert fought Nathan Walker. The final exhibition game is Saturday night at home against the Blues, with Patrick Kane not playing, and the last forward decisions come after — Landon Slaggert and Teuvo Teravainen are reportedly ahead of the cut prospects.
Colorado. The preseason ended with a 2-0 loss to Utah on Saturday — Jack McBain and Logan Cooley (power play) scored in the first period, Scott Wedgewood stopped thirty-three and was Colorado's best player, and the penalty kill finished eight for nine. Friday's 5-2 win over Winnipeg was the fun one: rookie T.J. Hughes starred with a hat trick, now two goals and two assists in the preseason, and the camp debate is whether the Avalanche keep him on the opening-night roster. Friday's cuts sent Domenick Fensore and Christian Wolanin through waivers to the Eagles, and the camp roster sits at thirty-eight with the final trim expected before Wednesday's opener against Los Angeles.
Dallas. Tyler Seguin's night was the headline of Friday's 2-1 preseason-closing win over Minnesota: thirteen minutes and fifty-seven seconds of ice time, his first game since tearing his right ACL on December second. "Feels like your first game all over again," he said. Radek Faksa and Thomas Harley (off Jared Spurgeon's stick) scored, and Casey DeSmith made twenty-six saves. Jake Oettinger was scratched Wednesday with lower-body tightness and didn't practice Thursday — Glen Gulutzan expects a day or two — so the crease picture going into camp's last weekend is DeSmith carrying the load. Matt Duchene had maintenance days and Colin Blackwell sat with a lower-body issue, both expected for the opener October second against St. Louis. The cuts were heavy: top prospect Emil Hemming goes to Texas for his first full pro season, and PTO Jack Becker — who scored the preseason opener's game-winner — was released.
Minnesota. The preseason ended with a 2-1 loss to Dallas and a late-game boilover: down a goal with a minute left, Marcus Foligno fought Stars captain Jamie Benn while Michael McCarron fought Justin Hryckowian at the same time, Matt Boldy fought too, and John Hynes' summary was "two teams that really don't like each other too much" — Minnesota knocked Dallas out last spring. Joel Eriksson Ek scored the only goal and Jesper Wallstedt made sixteen saves. The injury is the real concern: Brock Faber took a point shot from Sam Steel to the left side of his helmet with 9:36 left in the second, skated off under his own power, finished the period, and was held out for the third as a precaution. Hynes said they don't know if it's anything major, and the day-to-day label leaves his status for Thursday's opener at Nashville as the Wild's biggest question.
Nashville. Friday's cuts took the roster to twenty-eight: Felix Nilsson, Cole O'Hara, Tanner Molendyk and Matt Murray to Milwaukee, with Hunter Skinner on waivers. Saturday brought a waiver claim — defenseman William Trudeau, twenty-three, from the Rangers — while Skinner cleared, Justin Barron hit waivers, and the roster sits at twenty-seven with the twenty-three-man deadline Monday at four Central. The preseason closed Saturday afternoon with a 6-0 home loss to Carolina. Andrew Brunette said entering camp that four or five roster spots were up for grabs, and Monday's deadline is when that math lands.
St. Louis. Zach Dean and Dillon Dube won the final two forward spots on the opening-night roster — Jim Montgomery's separator was "their speed, their energy, their tenacity on pucks" — which is why Oskar Sundqvist, Nathan Walker and Jack Finley cleared waivers Saturday and went to Springfield. Dean, acquired in the 2023 Ivan Barbashev trade with Vegas, still hasn't made his NHL debut; Dube brings three hundred twenty-five NHL games on a one-year, eight-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar deal. Friday's cuts sent 2024 first-rounder Adam Jiricek and 2023 first-rounder Otto Stenberg to Springfield despite strong camps. Thursday's 1-0 win over Chicago closed with a Saturday rematch at the United Center, and the opener is October second at Dallas. Tyler Tucker is likely headed to injured reserve with a tweaked right knee, and Georgii Romanov is expected on waivers Sunday.
Utah. The Mammoth closed their preseason with a 2-0 shutout of Colorado on Saturday: McBain and Cooley scored in the first, and the NHL.com live blog's projected opening lineup reads Keller-Schmaltz-Trocheck, Lee-Cooley-Guenther, McBain-Hayton-Crouse, Carcone-Stenlund-But, with Sergachev-Weegar and Schmidt-Marino on defense and Karel Vejmelka in net. Thursday's 5-4 overtime loss in Vegas was the livelier tape: Liam O'Brien scored in his second straight preseason game, Kevin Stenlund had three assists, Artyom Duda led all skaters with 22:59, and Daniil But keeps pushing for a roster spot. Friday's cuts sent Tij Iginla and Caleb Desnoyers to Tucson and put Brandon Tanev and Joshua Roy on waivers. Maveric Lamoureux is out for a bit and Michael Carcone is day-to-day. The opener is October first at home against Chicago.
Winnipeg. The preseason ended with a 5-2 loss at Colorado on Friday, then the team headed to Colorado Springs for a few days of bonding and practice. Friday's cuts put Nikita Chibrikov, Parker Ford and Noah Gregor plus defenseman Isaak Phillips on waivers for the Moose, and waiver-exempt goalie Thomas Milic was loaned down — the camp roster is at twenty-nine with the twenty-three-man deadline Monday. The Connor Hellebuyck standoff is unchanged: suspended since September 17 for failing to report, with no new developments beyond the standing note that the Sharks and Jets have kicked the tires. The opener is Friday against Boston.
PACIFIC
Anaheim. The preseason ended Saturday afternoon with a 6-2 loss to the Kings at Crypto.com Arena: Nikita Nesterenko opened the scoring, and Leo Carlsson fed Beckett Sennecke at the back post for a power-play goal — Sennecke's fourth of the preseason. Thursday's 10-0 loss to San Jose was the ugly one; Ville Husso was pulled after six goals on nineteen shots. Friday's cuts took the roster to thirty-five. Friday's practice lines — Killorn-Carlsson-Gauthier, Sennecke-Granlund-Klepov, Myatovic-Poehling-Vatrano — are the last look at where the group sits.
Calgary. The Flames trimmed to twenty-seven on Friday and then made the week's strangest move: they signed PTO forward Alex Nylander to a one-year, two-way deal worth eight hundred fifty thousand dollars on Friday — he was born in Calgary during his father Michael's Flames tenure, and won the Calder Cup with Toronto's farm team last season — and put him on waivers Saturday. Andreas Englund was claimed off waivers by Detroit on Saturday. The final preseason game is Saturday night at Edmonton, and the season opens Thursday against Seattle.
Edmonton. Friday's fifteen roster moves took the camp group to thirty-four, with Seth Griffith released from his PTO and Josh Brown, Riley Stillman and Eduards Tralmaks on waivers. The setback of the day was Jason Dickinson: the same lower-body injury that limited him late last season flared, he didn't skate Friday, won't play Saturday's finale, and looks unlikely for Tuesday's opener against Vancouver. "He's had a setback... it looks like we were really advancing. He tweaked it," Mike Babcock said. NCAA signing Owen Michaels stays up partly because of Dickinson's absence. Thursday's 2-1 win over Vancouver had Isaac Howard with a goal and an assist and Tristan Jarry stopping twenty-five. Friday's practice lines ran Podkolzin-McDavid-Draisaitl, Howard-RNH-Hyman, Jones-Frederic-Kapanen up front with Ekholm-Bouchard and Walman-Murphy behind. The finale is Saturday against Calgary.
Los Angeles. The Kings closed their preseason with a 6-2 win over Anaheim on Saturday afternoon: Scott Laughton and Adrian Kempe — his first of the preseason — scored, plus three more in the third. The projected Saturday lineup is the opening-night picture: Panarin-Byfield-Kempe, Zuccarello-Turcotte-Laferriere, Moore-Haula-Laughton, Lee-Helenius-Armia, with Anderson-Clarke, Edmundson-Doughty and Dumoulin-Ceci on defense. Kevin Fiala remains on injured reserve after his second leg surgery, and Corey Perry was listed non-roster. Taylor Ward and Scott Perunovich hit waivers Saturday. The season opens Wednesday against Colorado.
San Jose. The Sharks' 23-man roster is nearly set: fourteen healthy forwards led by newly named captain Macklin Celebrini, eight healthy defensemen, and Luca Cagnoni looking like an opening-night lock because of his power-play role — he practiced the six-on-five with Celebrini, Smith, Stenberg, Chernyshov and Wennberg. Thursday's 10-0 demolition of Anaheim closed the home preseason slate with Celebrini and Smith playing their first preseason games; scorers included Mason Marchment, Michael Misa with his first career preseason goal, Igor Chernyshov with two, and Filip Bystedt — who was then cut to the Barracuda on Friday. Jimmy Huntington and Eric Comrie cleared waivers Saturday and will join the Barracuda; Ilya Samsonov just cleared immigration and hit the ice as the effective third goalie. Adam Gaudette skated with the rehab group and is still day-to-day. The finale is Saturday night in Vegas.
Seattle. Quiet camp weekend — no new cuts or signings. The September 24 feature was the line to watch: Mackie Samoskevich, acquired from Florida in June, on the top line with his old college teammate and roommate Matty Beniers and Jared McCann, and the trio was together in Thursday's 4-3 shootout win over Calgary. The finale was Saturday at Vancouver — 2-2 late in the second at last check. The season opens October first.
Vancouver. Saturday's cuts sent 2025 fifteenth-overall pick Braeden Cootes — a goal and two assists in three preseason games — and Matthew Stienburg to Abbotsford, and GM Ryan Johnson said he doesn't believe in yo-yoing young players; a new NHL rule lets the nineteen-year-old Cootes play in the AHL instead of going back to junior. Thatcher Demko will start the season on injured reserve recovering from February's double hip surgery — "cautiously progressing," no timeline, "we're just taking the correct steps with Thatcher to do this once and one time only." Filip Chytil is week-to-week with a muscular strain, on injured reserve retroactive to September 24. The model's read on the loss: Chytil is a 67th-percentile Strong driver with an elite Play driver tag, 11 goals, 3 primary and 4 secondary assists, 116 shots and 13.3 expected goals at 5v5 in fifty-six games. The roster has to be at twenty-three by Monday at two Pacific; the finale was Saturday against Seattle, and the opener is Tuesday at Edmonton.
Vegas. Thursday's 5-4 overtime win over Utah was the veterans shaking off the rust: Tomas Hertl tied it six-on-five after Utah retook the lead with 1:31 left, and Jack Eichel won it thirty-nine seconds into overtime, with Jeremy Lauzon and Mark Stone also scoring. It was the first action for most of the group since losing Game 6 of the Cup Final to Carolina on June 14. Hertl's card fits the moment: 89th percentile, an Elite driver with defensive type, strong Faceoff specialist, Lane clogger, Whistle winner, Play driver and Suppressor tags, 117 shots and 15.4 expected goals at 5v5 in eighty-two games. Coach Ryan Craig shuffled the forward lines mid-game to find a spark, and the roster sits at twenty-eight with the thirteenth-forward battle still running among Jonas Rondbjerg, Raphael Lavoie, Tanner Laczynski and Alexander Holtz. The finale is Saturday night against San Jose, and the opener is Tuesday at home against Chicago.