Thrashers trim roster

By Chris Vivlamore

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Thrashers trimmed their training camp roster to 46 players on Wednesday, sending down or releasing 16 players.

Forwards Michael Forney, Tomas Pospisil and Matt Siddall and defenseman Scott Lehman were assigned to the team’s AHL affiliate in Chicago.

The Thrashers returned forwards Jimmy Bubnick (Kamloops, WHL), Levko Koper (Spokane, WHL), Jeremy Morin (Kitchener, OHL), Eric O’Dell (Sudbury, OHL) and Danick Paquette (Quebec, QMJHL) and defensemen Ben Chiarot (Guelph, OHL) and Cody Sol (Saginaw, OHL) to their junior teams.

The team released forwards Matt Anderson and Darryl Smith, defensemen Mike Looby and Drew Paris, and goaltender Josh Unice.

“It’s not like they were hard decisions to make,” Thrashers coach John Anderson said. “We appreciate the efforts of everyone that came in but we’ve got to get down to manageable numbers very quickly.”

Exhibition roster

The Thrasher set a 25-man roster that will travel to the first two exhibition games of the preseason — Thursday in Nashville and Friday in Tampa Bay.

Making the trip will be:

Forwards (15): Eric Boulton, Joey Crabb, Kevin Doell, Angelo Esposito, Dan Fritsche, Josh Gratton, Evaner Kane, Jason Krog, Jordan LaVallee, Spencer Machacek, Jim Slater, Tim Stapleton, Brett Sterling, Anthony Stewart and Chris Thorburn.

Defensemen (8): Zach Bogosian, Arturs Kulda, Nathan Oystrick, Mark Popovic, Paul Postma, Anssi Salmela, Boris Valabik and Mike Vernace.

Goaltenders (2): Drew MacIntyre and Ondrej Pavelec.

MacIntrye will start in goal against Nashville and Pavelec will play against Tampa Bay.

“We want to see some of the young guys play,” Anderson said. “If they play well, they’ll stay. If they don’t, that will give us an indication to move on and send them to the appropriate places. These two games will be huge for a lot of guys.”

Anderson said he expected to trim the roster again shortly after the first two exhibition games.