Greyhounds trim camp roster by 12

The decisions weren’t easy, but there are tougher ones to come for the Soo Greyhounds.

With three days of training camp in the books, a group of 56 players is down to 44 heading into the annual red and white game on Friday night.

Greyhounds general manager Kyle Raftis said following Thursday’s scrimmages that there were some players in the group that left a mark.

“It’s tough on one side of it because a lot of them are part of the younger group,” Raftis said. “A lot of those guys showed well. Some of them, you could see it’s a lot of hockey in a short amount of time and they get worn down a little bit. It’s a good experience for them that they can take back to their U18 or junior program.”

With a short turnaround between Friday’s red and white game and the Greyhounds first exhibition game on Saturday night against Sudbury, Raftis said the plan will still be to go with a slightly bigger roster following the next round of cuts.

“We’re definitely going to have some extra guys coming out of camp, but it’s guys that warrant a spot and guys that deserve a little bit longer of a look,” Raftis said. “There’s a couple spots up for grabs and we’ve been surprised by a couple of guys too.”

In the red and white game on Friday, four veterans are slated to miss the game.

Forward Owen Allard and defencemen Caeden Carlisle and Luc Brzustowski will be out due to injury while overage forward Keegan McMullen will miss the game as he returned home due to a personal matter but will return to the team.

The players cut and reassigned following Thursday’s scrimmages include goaltenders Matthew Saari, Tyler Hodges, and Mitch Webb, defencemen Anthony Ciaramitaro, Evan Roach, and forwards Brayden Russell, Matthew Prendergrast, Aiden Nicholson, Troy Hunka, Jackson Mayo, Nate Brentnell, and Andrew Hopley.