Quote:
Originally Posted by Alberta_Beef
We didn't gain a roster spot though, Backstrom fills that roster spot.
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I've addressed this before, but evidently you didn't see it. The 23-man roster limit is lifted after the trade deadline. At this point, only two things matter:
(1) The number of non-emergency AHL callups permitted.
(2) The 20-man lineup for each game.
According to his own account, Treliving wants to trim the active roster to the bare minimum so that any injury replacements will be emergency callups and not count against the limit. Having a third goalie is irrelevant to that (for skaters), because you can make an emergency callup whenever you have fewer than 12 forwards or six defencemen.
As for the game-day lineups, the only reason Backstrom will draw in is if both Hiller and Ortio continue to crap the bed. That seems almost certain to happen, but the other two goalies have no one to blame but themselves.
If anything, adding Backstrom gives the coaching staff an extra way to motivate the goalies. Without him, Hiller and Ortio would be dressing every game, guaranteed, barring injuries. If the team called up a third goalie because those two sucked so badly, it would use one of their non-emergency callups. Backstrom takes away their guarantee.