The Newfoundland Growlers will have to make at least one cut, perhaps more, before the team reaches its roster limit for its ECHL season-opener Friday night in St. John’s.
The Growlers still have 24 players in camp, four on tryouts. The team must be whittled down to 20 players on the active roster, with two reserves, although ECHL teams can carry 21 plus two for the first 30 days of the regular season.
The four in camp on tryouts are forwards Scott Trask of Bonavista and Jimmy Soper, defenceman Andrew Darrigo and goaltender Brad Barone.
The Growlers closed out a three-game exhibition series with the Brampton Beast Sunday, picking up a 6-5 win at the Clarenville Events Centre.
The Growlers twice erased two-goal Brampton leads in the third period, scoring three straight goals to win it.
The host team registered a 5-2 win Friday night in Deer Lake, after the Beast opened the series with a 4-2 Thursday night in Stephenville.
Scott Pooley, who played NCAA college hockey with Holy Cross last season before closing out the year with the AHL’s Toronto Marlies, had two goals and two assists in the series. Defenceman Kristians Rubins, a member of the Western Hockey League’s Medicine Hat Tigers last season, a year in which he played for his native Latvia in the World Junior Hockey Championship and World Hockey Championship, had a goal and two assists, as did St. John’s native Marcus Power, who was three points off averaging a point per game during four seasons with the University of Prince Edward Island. Matt Bradley, who played for the host Regina Pats in the Memorial Cup last season, had two goals.
