Quote:
Originally Posted by activeStick
Shinkaruk is going to be battling for 1 of 3 spots on the wings with Ferland, Pribyl, Chiasson most likely. I'd expect the one guy that loses out on this battle to have to win a spot as an extra and stay up against Hathaway, Hamilton and maybe Poirier if he can show better than he has thus far I'm the NHL.
I'd say he has a fairly good chance at being on the opening night roster looking purely at results thus far in the NHL.
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Ferland and Chiasson will be on the opening day roster.
Guys on 1-way contracts are almost guaranteed to make the opening day lineup no matter how bad they play (Setoguchi for example) and are generally given tons of chances to succeed (Raymond for example). A UFA that was just signed on a 1-way is 100% guaranteed to make the opening day roster. Otherwise the management looks like complete idiots for giving him that 1-way.
That makes the opening day roster pretty much set. Monahan, Bennett, Backlund. Stajan, Gaudreau, Bouma, Ferland, Bollig, Brouwer, Frolik, Chiasson and one more. (Shinkaruk, Pribyl, Tkachuk and I guess Jankowski are the competition for this spot. My guess is Shinkaruk wins out.)
Then again injuries in camp are pretty common.
(The big question isn't really who plays on opening night, but who is still on the roster in December. Bollig and Stajan are at risk of playing themselves out of the lineup, and Ferland and Bouma were both really bad last season. Especially with a new coach it's hard to predict how the season will go.)