Despite registering a point in each of his three exhibition games for the reigning Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes, former University of Maine winger Bradly Nadeau was sent down to the team’s American Hockey League affiliate, the Chicago Wolves.
Nadeau, who was named to the All-Hockey East and All-Rookie Teams as a Black Bear, had two goals and an assist and 11 shots on goal in his three games with Carolina.
The 21-year-old Nadeau, the third highest goal-scorer in the AHL the last two years with 59, had three goals in 12 games with the Hurricanes last season to go with his 27 goals and 29 assists in 52 games for the Wolves.
In a story on Hurricanes.com, Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour said the decision to send Nadeau down was “tough.”
“We’d love to keep him here, but we also have to figure out what makes sense,” he said. “You can see we have lots of forwards, so it wouldn’t really make sense at this point with the way the schedule worked out. We’d rather keep him going and keep him playing.”
When asked if Nadeau was considered a first call-up option, Brind’Amour said it just depends on the “kind of call up. It has to be the right fit.”
“We don’t want to call him up to play six minutes per night,” he said. “It just depends on where we’re at. Obviously, he’s a high-end player for us, and we love how he’s progressing.”
The two former Black Bears who will be on NHL rosters are veteran Boston Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman and hard-nosed Columbus Blue Jackets winger Ryan Lomberg.
Swayman, a first-time Vezina Trophy finalist (NHL’s best goalie) a year ago, was listed as the Bruins starter in Tuesday night’s opener against the New York Rangers. He had a 31-18-4 record, a 2.71 goals-against average and a .908 save percentage last season and made 52 saves on 55 shots in two exhibition games this preseason.
Lomberg, who signed a two-year, $2.6 million deal with Columbus after having four goals and five assists in 57 games for Calgary last season, had an assist in two exhibition games.
Columbus opens at home against Buffalo on Thursday evening.
Former UMaine winger Taylor Makar, who had a goal in four exhibition games for the Colorado Avalanche, sustained a minor injury in the last preseason game and will start the season on the non-roster injured reserve list.
Makar played in 12 games with the Avalanche a year ago but didn’t have a point. He appeared in 52 games for the AHL’s Colorado Eagles and had 14 goals and 10 assists. He also had two goals and four assists in 17 playoff games.
Makar and Dallas center Harrison Scott each signed two-year, $1,750,000 deals in the off-season with their respective teams.
Defenseman Ben Hutton, who has played in 575 regular season games for five NHL teams including the Las Vegas Golden Knights last season, was released by the Ottawa Senators after signing a professional tryout agreement with them.
Scott is one of several former Black Bears who was on a preliminary NHL preseason roster but
will start the season in the AHL.
Among the others are Eduards Tralmaks (Edmonton), Felix Trudeau (St. Louis), Donavan Houle (San Jose), Josh Nadeau (Montreal), Frank Djuracevic (Toronto), David Breazeale (Pittsburgh), Brandon Holt (Utah) and Victor Ostman (Seattle).