First cuts

Team Canada released nine players this morning, and five of them were from the WHL. Gone are WHL forwards Brad Ross, Brendan Gallagher, Linden Vey, and Ryan Howse, and defenceman Brayden McNabb.

Full cuts can be found here.

There's now 31 players remaining to compete for 22 spots, so there will be 9 more cuts made tomorrow morning after the exhibition game tonight against a Canadian university all-star team.

Of the remaining 31 players, 13 are from the WHL: goaltender Calvin Pickard, defencemen Tyson Barrie, Jared Cowen, Ryan Murray, and Mark Pysyk, and forwards Carter Ashton, Brett Connolly, Cody Eakin, Curtis Hamilton, Quintin Howden, Ryan Johansen, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Brayden Schenn.

There are 17 forwards, 10 defencemen, and 4 goaltenders remaining in camp, so the final cuts will be two goalies, 2 or 3 defencemen, and 4 or 5 forwards - the forward/defencemen numbers depend on whether they go with 7D-13F or 8D-12F. Usually Canada goes with 7D & 13F so I would look for that to be the case again.

As returning players, Schenn and Cowen are locks for the team and probably won't even play tonight in the exhibition game. Usually 8 or 9 "safe" players are given the final exhibition game off while the coaches analyze the remaining players.....