The Tucson Roadrunners, AHL affiliate of the Arizona Coyotes new season has begun...at least the pre-season portion of it.
Head Coach Mark Lamb and Assistant Coach Mark Hardy had 28 players in the initial Roadrunners' training camp all vying for jobs, and hoping to make it to the NHL.
The roster was supplemented by 15 players who did not make the cut in the Arizona Coyotes training camp.
Here's the complete roster:
#30: Mark Langhamer – Goaltender
#34: Adin Hill – Goaltender
#2: Michael Young – Defenseman
#3: Kyle Wood – Defenseman
#7: Brandon Burlon – Defenseman
#8: Michael Boivin - Defenseman
#38: Justin Hache – Defenseman
#37: Dysin Mayo – Defenseman
#43: Matt Register – Defenseman
#21: Mark Olver – Forward
#25: Matia Marcantuoni – Forward
#11: Brendan Perlini – Left Wing
#16: Lindsay Sparks – Left Wing
#18: Michael Bunting – Left Wing
#23: Garret Ross – Left Wing
#38: Ryan Walters – Left Wing
#44: Ryan Selleck – Left Wing
#45: Hunter Fejes – Left Wing
#19: Chris Mueller – Center
#20: Ryan MacInnis – Center
#32: Tyler Gaudet – Center
#39: Trevor Cheek – Center
#9: Henrik Samuelsson – Right Wing
#14: Craig Cunningham – Right Wing
#17: Brett Perlini – Right Wing
#22: Conor Garland – Right Wing
#24: David Friedmann – Right Wing
#29: Mark Cooper – Right Wing
With the roster limit in the AHL being 18 skaters and two goalies, there will be eight players eliminated before the Roadrunners begin their first AHL season on October 14th against the San Diego Gulls, the affiliate of the Anaheim Ducks.
Read more on the Arizona Coyotes ->> Arizona Coyotes cut 17 players from training camp roster
The lines that Coach Lamb put out on the new ice of the Tucson Convention Center were as follows:
Forwards:
Brendan Perlini – Chris Mueller – Henrik Samuelsson
Hunter Fejes – Lindsay Sparks – Mark Cooper
David Friedmann – Brett Perlini – Ryan Walters
Michael Bunting – Ryan MacInnis – Craig Cunningham
Trevor Cheek – Mark Olver – Matia Marcantuoni
Eric Selleck – Tyler Gaudet – Conor Garland
(Garret Ross)
Defensemen:
Justin Hache – Kyle Wood
Brandon Burlon – Dysin Mayo
Michael Young – Michael Boivin
(Matt Register)
How did the first day of camp go?
Coach Lamb had this comment to Alex Kinkopf of Tucsonroadrunners.com about the first day's camp:
"Today was the first day, so what we really did today was implementing a system that we’re going to use here, it’s the same system that [Arizona] is using, that the Coyotes are using up there. We’re going to try to do everything pretty much the same, there’s always a few little things that you’re going to change as the game goes on, but the practice that we used was the same practice that we used in training camp up in Phoenix at the start of main camp. We worked on some forechecking, we worked on some neutral zone, we worked on some D-zone stuff. It’s a quick camp, right away you’re into games, you’ve got new guys who haven’t played with each other, so that’s what we worked on today."
The Roadrunners and Arizona Coyotes will play an exhibition red-white game Sunday, October 9th at 1 pm at the Tucson Convention Center.
The game is free of admission, although a $5 donation will be suggested at the door, with all proceeds going toward the University of Arizona Wildcats Hockey program.