Hurricanes Making Cuts

[Scout]

Hurricanes Making the Cut
September 4 2007
Lethbridge, AB – The Lethbridge Hurricanes Hockey Club concluded Training Camp this past weekend. The four day camp officially opened on Thursday, August 30th and concluded Sunday with the Annual Blue and White game in support of the United Way of Lethbridge.

30 players remain of the original 59 who reported to this year’s camp. (10 defenseman, 18 forwards and 2 goaltenders) While most of the remaining players will all continue to battle for a spot on this year’s squad, first round bantam draft picks Alex Theriau (TERRY- Oh) and Pincher Creek’s Mark Reners (RAY-ners) will continue to practice with the Canes before returning to their respective Bantam AAA teams later this week. Included in the 30 is Hurricanes forward and 2006 - 2007 East Conference second team all star Zach Boychuk. Boychuk missed training camp to play with Team Canada in the ongoing Canada Russia Super Series. Canada currently leads the series 4-0 and will look to continue with their success as the action shifts to Winnipeg this evening.

NOTABLES:

Youngsters Carter Ashton and Cam Braes both had an excellent showing in Training Camp and will remain with the team as the preseason begins.

Team White managed a 5-4 win over Team Blue in the annual Blue and White inter-squad game. The game helped to raise over a thousand dollars for the United Way of Lethbridge, the highest total ever. The Hurricanes, along with the United Way would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the 500-plus fans for supporting this great event.

[canes77]

'Canes trim excess
By Trevor Kenney
Sep 5, 2007, 23:36


The goaltending battle is seemingly over and with just six extra position players still in camp, the Lethbridge Hurricanes are already taking shape some 17 days before their Western Hockey League season opener.
The ’Canes trimmed down their camp roster from 59 to 30 over the weekend but with a pair of injuries, Zach Boychuk away with the Canadian Juniors and three players off to pro camp, that leaves just 24 bodies for the start of the exhibition campaign this week. It’s a workable number the coaching staff likes.
“Now we’re going to start teaching and how we’re going to evaluate is we’ll see how well they can pick up the concepts that we’re working on and how well they are able to execute,” head coach Michael Dyck said following Tuesday’s workout at the Enmax Centre.
“Really what it’s going to come down to is Thursday night and Saturday night because now we have to take this to a whole other level. From camp to exhibition is a jump and once we get from exhibition to regular season, it’s an even bigger jump.”
The Hurricanes open their pre-season Thursday in Stettler against the Red Deer Rebels. Saturday night the same two teams hook up at the Enmax Centre, the first two games of a four-game pre-season schedule.
General manager Roy Stasiuk said he liked what he saw over the camp’s first weekend, including Sunday’s Blue-White Game at the Enmax.
“We’re very happy. We know we have some good depth now,” Stasiuk said. “Some good hockey players have gone back to their respective junior or midget teams and even though it’s tough for those kids now, it’s an indication that our program is getting stronger.”
The Hurricanes expect to carry 22 players this year, a trimmed down version of last season’s roster.
“We just found last year it was a nice luxury to have extra guys but really hard to get some guys into the rotation,” Stasiuk said, adding they’d carry 13 forwards, seven defencemen and two goaltenders. “So we’ll keep our numbers down and we’ll get to those numbers hopefully after the game on the 12th.”
Most noticeable from the weekend scrimmages was the continued development of speed and skill throughout the Hurricane organization.
“That’s been our philosophy since Mike and I arrived, that the hardest thing to defend against is speed,” Stasiuk said. “You can get bigger and you can slow things down but with today’s game and the rules, obviously (if) you’ve got speed and a high level of skill you’re going to have a lot of success.”
Dyck agrees, saying that not only does the club have speed at the WHL level now, it will continue to add it as the team moves forward.
“That’s definitely what we want to build this thing around, that’s the identity of this hockey club, is speed,” he said. “We have speed coming back to our lineup but we have a lot of speed coming into the lineup as well so it should make for an exciting year.”
There were no significant surprises among the weekend cuts while a quartet of 16-year-olds have advanced to the exhibition season. Forwards Cam Braes and Carter Ashton, along with defencemen Brock Sutherland and Brennan Yadlowski will be looking for a roster spot in their first year of eligibility. Ashton was dealt a blow Monday when he slid awkwardly into the end boards and suffered a broken collarbone, taking him out of the mix for the next four to six weeks.
Other new faces looking for jobs are forwards Craig Orfino (17), Dan Iwanski (17), Nick Dietrich (18) and Taylor Piller (17).
In net, just two stoppers remain, including the incumbent Michael Maniago and Finnish import Juha Metsola.
ICE CHIPS — F Mitch Fadden left for Tampa Bay Lightning camp today, joining F Dwight King (Los Angeles) and D Ben Wright (Columbus) at pro camps. All are expected back with the Hurricanes in the coming weeks . . . F Jacob Dietrich’s younger brother Nick (18) made it through the first round of cuts . . . Prospect 15-year-old D Alex Theriau and F Mark Reners will both stay in camp through the end of the week . . . The most interesting position battle will be at defence where 10 players, including seven returnees, will fight for the seven available spots.

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