The Twitter-verse has been awash in early line combinations and premature impressions during each team's first few days of training camp and preseason games.

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This week I wanted to look at some intriguing battles for the 13th forward, the 7th defender and/or the backup goalie for a few teams in the West. Teams will say that they will choose the best player to take into the regular season but unfortunately, other factors come into play, like the salary cap, trade value and/or waiver exemptions. It is becoming quite common for NHL teams to be more than comfortable having players in the AHL on one-way contracts.

Vancouver Canucks – 7th Defenceman (Brad Hunt/Olli Juolevi/Jack Rathbone)

The backline is fairly set with the Canucks this year and the last spot should come down to Brad Hunt, Olli Juolevi and Jack Rathbone. In a perfect world, if Rathbone was the better of the three (he is) he would be on the roster no question. Rathbone doesn't need to clear waivers whereas Hunt and Juolevi do to be sent to the AHL so it might complicate things.

For Hunt to make this team as a 33-year old undersized defender that isn't physical he will need to be pretty impressive in the pre-season to force the Canucks to put Juolevi on waivers. Even if Rathbone and Hunt have great pre-seasons and Juolevi struggles, I think from an asset management side of things that keeping Juolevi might be the prudent thing to do.

Most of us are aware that the Canucks took Juolevi with their 5th overall pick in 2016 ahead of Matthew Tkachuk and Canuck fans have rejoiced ever since. Juolevi has struggled and battled injuries to the point that at 23-years of age, his NHL career is not a certainty. If Rathbone plays 10-20 games in the AHL it isn't going to hurt his development at the age of 22 and should help him. If Juolevi is the odd man out, he should still be treated as a trade chip rather than be given away for free on waivers. Hunt played 12 games last season in Minnesota and was a healthy scratch most nights, so I don't think he is worth the price to lose Juolevi either. Although it could be argued that Juolevi's bag skate at training camp and negative comments from Travis Green isn’t doing him any favours.

Dallas Stars – Starting/Backup Goalie (Anton Khudobin, Braden Holtby, Jake Oettinger, Ben Bishop)

To many, it was a strange move by Jim Nill to bring in Braden Holtby this season on a one-year contract for $2 million when Anton Khudobin played 32 games last year and Jake Oettinger played 29. To add to the confusion, Holtby struggled in Vancouver last year with an 88.9 save percentage and a minus 13.62 GSAA which didn't improve upon his 2019-20 season in Washington where he had an 89.7 save percentage and a minus 14.62 GSAA.

Add to the intrigue that Ben Bishop is on the ice at training camp and by all reports looks good. He hasn't been cleared to play yet after his lengthy rehab from knee surgery in November of 2020. It sounds like he still has a little ways to go so don't expect him in the lineup for the start of the season. His $4.92 million salary-cap hit/LTIR will come into play as well with what the Stars do moving forward as it puts them about $4 million over the cap.

The Stars don't quite have the cap space to keep Khudobin, Holtby and Oettinger on the roster at the start of the season, so more than likely they will send Oettinger to the AHL as he doesn't require waivers and keep Khudobin and Holtby and put Bishop back on LTIR. This will leave the team with just less than $900k in cap space so if the team wants to activate Bishop they will have to trade some salary. If Khudobin or Holtby gets injured the team will be able to bring up Oettinger but it is hard to wrap my head around the team keeping Oettinger out of the crease behind Khudobin and Holtby if this team wants in the playoffs.

Chicago Blackhawks – Backup Goalie (Kevin Lankinen, Malcolm Subban, Collin Delia)

It's amazing how much can happen in less than a year. At the start of the 2020-21 season, Collin Delia was the starter and Malcolm Subban was the backup. Delia had two bad starts and didn't see the crease in Chicago again until four games in May, where he was decent with a 92.4 save percentage and 2.14 GSAA.

With the addition of Marc-Andre Fleury, there are now three goalies in Delia, Kevin Lankinen and Malcolm Subban who will need to clear waivers to be sent to the AHL and are all on one-way contracts between $800k and $1.1 million AAV with Delia the highest. Lankinen was actually on a two-way contract last season albeit a pretty close split of $750k/500k.

Lankinen seems to be the consensus choice for backup this season as he played 37 games last year with 17 wins and an overall save percentage of 90.9 and a GSAA of 1.77. If we look a little deeper and focus on his last 25 games of the year he did fade quite a bit with only 10 wins, a save percentage of 89.9 and a GSAA of minus 7.24.

In four partial seasons and 82 career games, Subban has never had a positive GSAA even when he won 13 games in 22 games with Vegas in 2017-18.

One would think that the Blackhawks would take the goalie that has the most upside and that comes down to Lankinen and Delia in my opinion. I'd give the edge to Lankinen because he had an impressive first 12 games of his NHL career with nine quality games in that period and he proved he can get on a roll.

*Interesting to note that Delia missed practice yesterday and is day-to-day and Lankinen was out day-to-day as well for Covid Protocol over the weekend.

Edmonton – 10th/11th/12th/13th Forwards (Josh Archibald, Devin Shore, Ryan Mcleod, Seth Griffith, Tyler Benson, Cooper Marody, Brendan Perlini, Kyle Turris, Colton Sceviour)

With the disclosure that Josh Archibald is unvaccinated and will miss games because of it, the question has been raised that his spot might not be secure on this roster moving forward. First and foremost, Archibald is scheduled to make $1.5 million this season and he will become a UFA at the end of it. There is a significant salary tied up with him, not to play him and give up his 192 hits in 52 games of last year and his abilities to shut down the opposition and penalty kill. Either way, he is going to miss 20-30 games next year.

With nine players vying for four spots it should breed some healthy competition and the incumbents Archibald, Kyle Turris and Devin Shore will have their work cut out for them. Ryan Mcleod and Tyler Benson are not conventional fourth-line players so are at a disadvantage if the team is looking for a defensive forward typical of the fourth line that bangs bodies. 

The center ice battle for the fourth line should come down to Turris, Mcleod, Shore or Cooper Marody with all of them capable of penalty killing and taking faceoffs. Mcleod is waiver exempt so expect him to be sent to the AHL to start while the salary cap hits are $1.65 million for Turris, $850k for Shore and Marody is on a two-way contract that pays him $750k/150k this year. Expect Turris to be centering the fourth line once again. Marody would be a dark horse to make the team.

That leaves us three winger/center spots for Archibald, Shore, Benson, Griffith, Perlini and Sceviour. The Archibald issue will open up an opportunity regardless for 20 or more games and Sceviour (on a PTO) could fit that role with his physical play and penalty killing experience. At 32-years of age, he is no longer at his peak and the Oilers only have just over $1 million of salary-cap space still so he would have to be that much better than the others to sign. Tyler Benson is on a two-way contract this season that will pay him $750k/$100k, but he will need to clear waivers to be sent to the AHL, which he probably wouldn't.

Seth Griffith hasn't played in the NHL since the 2017-18 season with Buffalo and in his career has played 79 games with eight goals and 19 points. He has a two-way deal at $750k/475k so was more than likely brought in to provide some much-needed depth and give the AHL team a very good player.

Looking from the outside into a situation that I'm not intimately following I would put the four players that the Oilers go with on their roster for opening night as Turris, Archibald, Benson and Shore. 

Nashville Predators – 7th Defenseman (Matthew Benning, Ben Harpur, Matt Tennyson, Jeremy Davies, David Farrance)

Jeremy Davies and David Farrance are waivers exempt while Matthew Benning, Ben Harpur and Matt Tennyson would need to clear waivers. One thing Nashville does have this season is cap space with just over $10.4 million available to them.

Benning will make $1 million this year and Harpur $800k and both have a one-way deal. Tennyson has a two-way deal at $750k/325k for both this year and next. David Farrance is still on his entry-level contract and Jeremy Davies is on a two-way contract that will pay him $750k/150k this year.

Farrance turned pro last season after college and played two games last year and looked decent getting some power-play time. Some time in the AHL is not going to hurt him, so unless he has an unbelievable pre-season he is likely headed there.

Davies played 16 games as a 23-year old rookie last year averaging just over 15 minutes per game. He has an offensive component to his game after nine points in nine AHL games last year and 28 points in 62 AHL games the year before. Davies is a little undersized and isn't overly physical and doesn't penalty kill yet so he will need to provide some offense to stick in the NHL.

31-year old Tennyson was brought in after being in New Jersey for two seasons where he played 41 games over that time with 59 hits and 43 blocked shots. He has been in the NHL for eight seasons and his career-high games in a year were 45 back in 2016-17 with Carolina. He is a depth player that has averaged about 13 minutes per game over the past three years.

The status quo would be Harpur and Benning and if healthy that is more than likely the way it will stay, with Tennyson and Davies depth, while Farrance gets a ton of ice time in the AHL.

Even doing this exercise for a few teams there are always a few players that squeak through and are genuine roster surprises.

Thanks for reading and if you have any questions or players you’d like me to look at please message or follow me on Twitter @gampbler15.