If you are catching up after non-Hurricanes plans for Friday night, the recap and notes from the Hurricanes 2-1 overtime loss to the Lightning is HERE.

As expected, the Hurricanes made a move today to begin filling the roster for the Charlotte Checkers’ training camp which starts on Monday. The 5 NHL roster cuts of Kyle Hagel, Daniel Altshuller, Clark Bishop, Josh Wesley and Erik Karlsson decreases the Hurricanes training camp roster to 46 players.

At a basic level, this matches the expected roster cut calendar that I posted earlier this week, but this set of cuts should be viewed as part 1 of 2. There should be another sizable batch of cuts soon. My initial expectation was that the Canes would ice more AHL tryout players on Friday and do a bigger round of cuts before hitting the road for 3 games in 4 days starting on Sunday. My original guess was that 15-18 players would be cut this weekend, so if you include Nicolas Roy and Janne Kuokkane who were cut earlier in the week, the total is only 7. Best guess is that at least a few more players will be cut after Sunday’s game, but with the back-to-back on Tuesday and Wednesday, the team might keep a few more players around to fill those lineups without pushing too many veterans into playing a back-to-back.

None of the players cut are a surprise. All were ultimately destined for Charlotte, so I would not interpret any of their cuts as a demotion or a negative. Rather, it is within the natural course of preseason. With roughly 23 more players yet to be cut, I would not say it is surprising that any 1 player is still around nor are the players still on the NHL roster really close to making the team. The next round or 2 of cuts will be the point in time to assess who is rising and falling in terms of Hurricanes prospects.

Go Canes!