After Saturday’s training camp practice ahead of their evening road contest with the Philadelphia Flyers, the Washington Capitals made a bunch of roster cuts to trim their roster down to 37. They first made some cuts ahead of their second preseason game against the New Jersey Devils by assigning Garin Bjorklund, Haakon Hanelt, Martin Has, Bear Hughes, and Dru Krebs to their respective teams. Yesterday they assigned their second round draft pick Vincent Iorio to the Brandon Wheat Kings.
Today they assigned the following players to the Hershey Bears, who begin their training camp tomorrow: Kody Clark, Cody Franson, Shane Gersich (requires waivers), Lucas Johansen (waivers required), Kale Kessy, Dylan McIlrath (requires waivers, who’s suspended for two preseason and two regular season games for a hit in the preseason opener), Mason Morelli, Hunter Shepard, Riley Sutter, and Eddie Wittchow.
Bobby Nardella will continue his rehabilitation in Hershey. Here is the updated training camp roster:
Forwards (22)
Nicklas Backstrom
Nic Dowd
Lars Eller
Carl Hagelin
Garnet Hathaway
Axel Jonsson-Fjallby
Evgeny Kuznetsov
Hendrix Lapierre
Beck Malenstyn
Anthony Mantha
Connor McMichael
T.J. Oshie
Garrett Pilon
Aliaksei Protas
Michael Sgarbossa
Conor Sheary
Joe Snively
Daniel Sprong
Mike Vecchione
Tom Wilson
Defensemen (10)
Alex Alexeyev
John Carlson
Martin Fehervary
Tobas Geisser
Matt Irwin
Nick Jensen
Michal Kempny
Dmitry Orlov
Justin Schultz
Trevor van Riemsdyk
Goaltenders (4)
Pheonix Copley
Zach Fucale
Ilya Samsonov
Vitek Vanecek
Shane Gersich, Lucas Johansen, and Dylan McIlrath have to clear waivers in order to make it onto Hershey’s training camp roster. Kody Clark was an alternate captain for the Bears last season and had seven goals and nine points through 19 games. He was drafted by the Capitals at 47th overall in the 2018 NHL Draft.
Clark appeared in Wednesday’s preseason game agains the Devils and had one shot while finishing as a plus one though 10:02 minutes of ice time while also getting minutes on the penalty kill.
"It was a good time now to really be patient with it and make sure I feel good before I step on the ice. The progress is going good and I'm feeling better. Hopefully I can be on the ice soon."
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) October 2, 2021
Full media availability with Nicklas Backstrom.#ALLCAPS | @MedStarHealth pic.twitter.com/XCQyXaHNhv
Bobby Nardella is recovering from a shoulder injury and began training camp practicing in a light blue non contact sweater. He earned a two year contract extension over the summer which will be two way this season before switching to a one way next season. He had a strong rookie camp. He was on loan last season with Djurgardens IF recording seven goals and 33 points in 47 games.
Dylan McIlrath was brought on over the summer and was given a game misconduct in the preseason opener for an illegal check to the head.