After three days of scrimmages, the U.S. National Evaluation Camp has announced cuts as they look to trim the roster in advance of the 2016 World Juniors Championship in Helsinki, Finland.
With four days of camp remaining, the roster is down to 32 players. Up until this point the U.S. has played scrimmages as two separate teams — Team White and Team Blue. Now they’ll unite with head coach Ron Wilson on the bench for the first time.
There weren’t any major surprises in the first round of cuts, with cuts including Jordan Greenway (who scored a nice shirt handed breakaway goal against Sweden on Sunday), Christian Fischer, Josh Jacobs, Ryan MacInnis and Conor Garland.
Jack Dougherty was a late addition to the cuts, not on the original list.
Add D Jack Dougherty to the cut list at USA WJC Camp. Was still on roster this morning on initial release, but no longer.
— Chris Peters (@chrismpeters) August 4, 2015
Potentially unlikely to participate in the remaining scrimmages is BC winger and Minnesota Wild prospect Alex Tuch, who suffered a knee injury in Monday’s game against Finland. Missing the remainder of camp isn’t likely to hinder his chances of making the final roster, given that it isn’t a long-term issue. The 19-year-old winger made the team last year, playing in the team’s top six in a line with Jack Eichel. He’s not officially ruled out of the remainder of camp, however, and will be reevaluated on Tuesday.
Johnathan MacLeod has been ruled out though. No announcement was made on the specific nature of his injury, but USA Hockey announced that he will be held out of the remainder of camp for “precautionary reasons.”
The U.S. team will scrimmage again starting on Wednesday, when they take on Finland. They’ll also play Sweden on Thursday and have a re-match against Finland on Saturday.