Lightning Trim Roster By 18

On Saturday afternoon the Lightning announced that they have trimmed their roster down to forty, sending eighteen back to CHL and AHL teams. General Manager Steve Yzerman made this move to ready the Syracuse Crunch for their training camp which starts on Tuesday in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Those returning to the AHL are:

Brady Brassart

Cedrick Desjardins

Danick Gauthier

Riku Helenius

Charles Landry

Max Langelier-Parent

Dan Milan

Joey Mormina

Eric Neilson

Nikita Nesterov

Carl Nielsen

Drew Olson

Evan Rankin

Tanner Richard

Artem Sergeev

Luke Witkowski

Two players, Henri Ikonen and Slater Koekkoek, are headed back to their OHL teams. Adam Erne, who impressed in the opening preseason game was susepended for three preseason games. On Friday the Lightning announced he would head back to his junior team. While this was a questionable decision on Steve Yzerman’s part, this will give the 2013 second round pick another year of training.

Of the remaining forty man roster, including twenty-three forwards, fourteen defensemen, and three goalies, many have spent a significant amount of time with the Lightning in the past. Sixteen players spent all of last season on the team while eleven split time between the Syracuse Crunch and Tampa Bay Lightning.

Jonathan Drouin, the team’s first round pick in 2013 is one the players remaining on the roster as well as goalie Kristers Gudlevskis, a fifth round pick.