Following Friday’s practice, Knoblauch said that he hopes to get the best of both worlds with his lineup for the next two games, hoping to give some of his NHL regulars the ice time necessary to get up to game speed while providing other players with the opportunities they need to audition for roles.
“We'll look for two of our four lines [to dress] and two lines of guys who are on the cusp of making the team,” he said. “So it’ll probably be about half of our roster.”
Following Monday’s pre-season meeting with the Vancouver Canucks, however, the bench boss is keen to get his Training Camp roster – currently sitting at 41 with four goalies, 13 defencemen & 24 forwards – down to a more manageable number that’s closer to what they’ll begin the regular season with on Oct. 9 on home ice against Winnipeg.
“I think we're starting to transition into that,” he said. “Like I said, our next two games will probably have half our [NHL] lineup, but they'll be pretty much playing their role and their situations that they'll play. And then, as we play probably our last two exhibition games, we're looking at getting ready for regular season and we're almost at that stage of having our team.
"There'll be other guys that are still on the cusp of making our team and we'll still be evaluating, but it'll just be maybe two forwards each night and maybe one or two defencemen. We'll be really close on making our final roster there."
