Lightning Pre-Season Report

[Jets GM]

Two games remain in the Lightning pre-season, and their opening night roster is beginning to take shape. In another off-season blockbuster, Jeff Carter was brought in to play alongside Olympic linemate SIdney Crosby. While they have only appeared in one pre-season game thus far, Lightning head coach Dave Andreychuk says to look for more of that duo as the pre-season winds down. "Last two games, probably going to be a lot of guys who will be hear on opening night....you want to be sure they are familiar with each other." Crosby and Carter will be joined on the left side by another new Bolt, Marian Gaborik. "It's a dynamic line, its going to be a lot of fun to watch them play" says Andreychuk.

While most of the lineup appears to be locked, a couple of question marks will be answered over the last few days. The third line, centered by Claude Giroux and with Justin Abelkader on the left side, has a spot on the right side open with only a week left in camp. Competing for the spots were Dana Tyrell, Emerson Etem, and Teddy Purcell. However, with Purcell not making it past the first round of cuts, Etem and Tyrell remain. Both have produced offensively during their time in the lineup; it will come down to the last few games to see who pulls ahead. "There similar players, were looking for puck management and reliability" says assistant coach VIncent Lecavalier "We'll see how things shake out".

The other spot open is on the back end. Thought to belong to free agent signing Matt Corrente, Ryan Sproul has made a push to claim the bottom pairing spot alongside veteran Mark Eaton. Sproul, an enigmatic player, appeared in 7 games last year for the Lightning notching two assists. A late round pick thought to be nothing but farm depth, Sproul hasn't been a reliability defensively which was thought to be his shortcoming. "I mean, we'll see. They are very different players" says GM Cote "Corrente is a stay at home guy, like Eaton. Ryan is all over the place sometimes....but in that chaos, he can be productive."

Projected opening night lineup:

Marian Gaborik - Sidney Crosby - Jeff Carter
Dalton Smith - Tyler Seguin - Tyler Biggs
Justin Abelkader - Claude Giroux - Etem/Tyrell
Phillip McRae - Carl Klingberg - Alexander Avtsyn

Yuri Alexandrov - Cam Fowler
Patrick Nemeth - David Shields
Mark Eaton - Sproul/Corrente

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