They’ve been a team for some time now.
Today, they are a team with a full complement of players.
On Sunday, the Newfoundland Growlers revealed its inaugural training camp roster, a body of 23 that will hit the ice today at the Glacier in Mount Pearl.
However, while most of the lineup for the Growlers’ first-ever ECHL regular-season game 11 from now will come from this group, there still could be considerable and/or significant changes between now and then.
That’s because we haven’t heard the click-clack of the last dominoes falling further along the Toronto Maple Leafs/Marlies system.
Of the players assigned Sunday, 19 are signed to effective contracts, with one — goaltender Eamon MacAdam — on an NHL contract with the Maple Leafs.
Eleven more are signed to AHL deals with the Marlies, while seven are contracted directly to the Growlers, including defenceman Evan Neugold, the latest player inked by the ECHL expansion club.
There are five Newfoundlanders — including forward Zach O’Brien of St. John’s, who is on an AHL deal. The others are defencemen Adam Pardy of Bonavista and James Melindy of Goulds and forwards Marcus Power of St. John’s and Scott Trask of Bonavista.
There is one other player whose last name might give local fans some pause. That would be 23-year-old forward Jimmy Soper, who played last season in the Federal and Southern Professional leagues. Soper is from Waterloo, but his father Boyd is from Newfoundland.
Soper and Trask, who also played in the Southern Professional Hockey League last winter, are two of four tryout players on the Growlers’ training-camp roster, joining defenceman Andrew Darrigo and goaltender Brad Barrone.
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As for what might else happen roster-wise in the coming days, you should note that, as of Sunday night, the Maple Leafs still had 26 players, three more than the maximum roster size permitted to start the new NHL season. And the Marlies had 27 if you include five players placed on waivers who had been cut from the big team’s training camp.
No fewer than 24 of those 27 are signed to contracts, with the remaining three — forward Erick Selleck, defenceman Kyle Cumiskey and goaltdender Justin Peters, all former NHlers — in camp on tryouts.
There could be waiver claims, trades, transactions and/or injury designations that will adjust those numbers, but with that many players weighing down the upper floors of the Maple Leafs organization, it’s still reasonable to expect a couple or a few more to be eventually sent down the stairs to the Growlers.
Physicals for players who didn’t attend the Leafs or Marlies training camps were held Sunday at Mile One Centre. The bulk of the assigned players arrived on an afternoon flight from Toronto, followed by a team meeting/get-together.
Training camp will continue at the Glacier up to and including Wednesday, when the Growlers will travel west for exhibition games against the Brampton Beast in Stephenville (Thursday), Deer Lake (Friday) and Clarenville (Sunday, Oct. 7).
The Growlers’ their first-ever ECHL regular-season game Oct. 12, against the Florida Everblades at Mile One Centre.
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Growlers training-camp roster
(with assigned jersey numbers)
Forwards (12)
7 Semyon Babintsev, 9 Marcus Power, 10 Zach O’Brien, 11 Derian Plouffe, 12 Scott Pooley, 18 Scott Trask, 22 Brady Ferguson, 26 Josh Kestner, 27 Matt Bradley, 29 Giorgio Estephan, 38 Jimmy Soper, 40 Ryan Moore
Defencemen (8)
2 Adam Pardy, 4 Andrew Darrigo, 5 Kristians Rubins, 8 Evan Neugold, 23 Stefan LeBlanc, 24 Alex Gudbranson, 42 Kyle Thacker, 43 James Melindy
Goaltenders (3)
30 Brad Barone, 34 Michael Garteig, 35 Eamon McAdam
Notes — Pardy, Melindy, O’Brien, Plouffe, Estephan, Ferguson, Garteig, Pooley, Kestner, Bradley, Gudbranson, LeBlanc, and McAdam, who constitute more than half the roster, all have played in the AHL, with Pardy being the only player to spend time in the NHL … Pardy is also one of five former NHL draft picks, along with Estephan, McAdam, Melindy and Bradley … Rubins, Thacker, Moore, Plouffe, Bradley, Pooley, Kestner, Power and Ferguson would all qualify as professional rookies … Not on the training -camp roster, but expected with the Growlers is forward Kristian Pospisil, who was last listed as injured with the Marlies …
Twitter: @telybrendan
