Carolina Hurricanes Officially Announce Return to Play Roster

Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, Carolina Hurricanes (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, Carolina Hurricanes (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)

The Carolina Hurricanes and the NHL are back!

The Carolina Hurricanes have officially announced their return to play roster featuring 30 players, who made the cut?

Phase 3 (training camps) of the NHL’s return to play plan starts this upcoming Monday and with that, the Carolina Hurricanes have officially revealed their roster.  Featuring 30 players, the roster may have an unexpected name or two to keep an eye on.

Starting in net, the Hurricanes are opting to wisely carry four goaltenders. It comes as no surprise that the four names are Petr MrazekJames Reimer, Alex Nedeljkovic, and Anton Forsberg. All four have appeared for the Canes at least once this season.

On defense, the Hurricanes are going to be carrying ten players. Everyone from the regular season is returning including injured players Dougie Hamilton, Brett Pesce, and Sami Vatanen. Jake Bean is also getting the call after a strong showing in the American Hockey League this season.

This D unit extremely deep and competitive and it’ll be interesting to see who sits out and how the pairs will look come game one vs New York. The lone exhibition game is going to be very telling, as there isn’t much time to tinker with combos before things get real.

https://twitter.com/Canes/status/1281740027714772998?s=20

Upfront, Carolina chose to include 16 skaters. Highlighted by superstars Andrei Svechnikov and Sebastian Aho, there really isn’t much of a surprise here either. All 13 skaters who finished the year with the Canes are listed, including the NHL’s all-time points per game leader Morgan Geekie.

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Max McCormick and Steven Lorentz will be joining the team from Charlotte and 2019 first-rounder Ryan Suzuki rounds out the group of what are presumably the “black aces.”

Notable omissions include Dominik Bokk and Joey Keane, who were two names rumored to be on the Hurricanes radar a few days ago. Both Roland McKeown and Gustav Forsling could have easily been included as well, but their absence makes sense given the wealth of depth already.

Clark Bishop is the biggest name not on this list given the fact that he was a guy the team commonly called up when an injury occurred upfront.  Rod has shown trust in him and the past during both the regular season and playoffs last spring.

Of course, this could all change as players have until 5 pm on Monday to opt-out of participating in the return to play. However, it appears as if most, if not all, have already been spotted practicing and taking part in phase 2 making that unlikely.

Question for CC readers: Were you surprised by any of the “black aces” on this roster?

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