Opening Night Roster is Set

Insert monkeys in newsroom image: where haman aktell

Cannot believe LuJo made the team over HHA. From how TEB/Carbery talked about Phillips “making the team, no needing to earn a starting spot”, wouldn’t be surprised if Mantha starts over him to begin the year.

The HHA situation is frustrating but there are multiple reasons for it. Johansen is waiver eligible, HHA is not; considering the lack of LHD we have in the system outside the NHL, the organization likely wants to hold onto Johansen and fears he'd be claimed, leaving them with no LHD on Hershey that are a part of the caps organization. Johansen also makes less than HHA, enough to the point that HHA would put them over the cap just barely and Johansen keeps them just under. They could put Edmundson on LTIR for cap space, but clearly they feel he'll be back within the first 10 games of the season and have decided to just run a 22-man roster until then. First defenseman that goes down due to injury leads to a HHA call-up imo.

Part of me completely understands the worry about Johansen for waivers but at the same time, he's cleared each of the last two years, I don't see anything to make me think that there would be a different outcome this year, since he wasn't more valuable than Emberson or Ludvig who were claimed earlier in the preseason. I assume it's more than likely the math thing, I almost have to believe MacLellan expected Aube-Kubel to be claimed and Johansen stayed up because NAK's buried money keeps them from calling up HHA.

I think you see LuJo over HHA is because of the salary cap. Caps have $72,500 of cap space. Hardy Häman Aktell's salary is $870,000 vs Lucas Johansen's $762,500. So I wouldn't be surprised to see them swap once we accrue the cap space for HHA. that would be my guess.