LYNNWOOD — With three days remaining before the start of their inaugural season, the Everett Silvertips still have some work to do before they’ve finalized their roster.
However, the Silvertips aren’t feeling rushed into making any cuts soon. There’s no set schedule for trimming the roster.
"There aren’t really any specific numbers or dates that are forcing us to make any decisions," Everett coach Kevin Constantine said. "But logic says you don’t keep 27, 28 guys. We’d like to work our way down to 23 guys, but we’re not in a sprint to do that. We’ve still got a little bit of time."
The Silvertips did make one move Tuesday, releasing goalie Graham Zaparaniuk. That leaves Everett with two goalies — Jeff Harvey and Ryan Martin — and 27 players total.
For Zaparaniuk, who played with the Kindersley Klippers of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League last year, it was a matter of getting caught in the numbers game.
"We just kind of ran out of time and had to pick two for now to get moving on it," said Constantine, who noted that goalie is the position that requires the most time to evaluate. "And Zaparaniuk’s an ‘85-born, which means he still has some development time left in him. We thought in fairness to him we’d better make a decision and let him get back to a team that wants him and is ready to play him a bunch of games, rather than have him sit a month or two and hardly play."
With the goalie position set, Everett now must pare down its defensemen and forwards. Currently there are 15 forwards and 10 defensemen on the roster. Constantine would like to carry seven or eight defensemen and 13 or 14 forwards.
But with a brand new team, the Silvertips are still trying to determine the right balance between having depth and getting everyone adequate playing time.
"I think in this league with the number of games you play, there’s injuries that require you to have an adequate number of bodies around," Constantine explained. "If you have too many players, it eventually becomes a situation where players aren’t playing enough to develop, so you don’t want too many players either. So it’s always kind of a little bit of an art to try to match the need for covering for injuries, the need to develop, the need to have depth, and you’re always kind of juggling those needs around to find out what’s good for the team."
Another factor could be cuts made by other teams. The other 19 WHL teams can carry a maximum of three 20-year-old players (as an expansion team, Everett can carry five). The deadline for setting those three 20-year-olds is Oct. 16. Therefore, if the right player becomes available, the Silvertips would be willing to sign a player released by another team.
"If for some reason there’s a really talented older player that becomes available because of that, or if because other teams get players back from the NHL teams that they didn’t expect and have to cut a player, there’s always the chance that some pretty good player might become available, and we’re certainly always looking to better our team," Constantine said. "At the same time as a coach, I don’t really think about that stuff much because those are things that may or may not happen, and I have to assume that they never happen. I have to take the guys we have here and make sure we’re working with each of those players to become a better player."
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