Blazers to trim roster this week

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
The Kamloops Blazers are expected to trim their roster by up to four players this week, perhaps even as early as today.
The Blazers, who are to conclude their WHL exhibition season this weekend and open the regular season Sept. 18, are carrying 31 players, including five at NHL camps and two with long-term injuries.
“We’re going to go over it again,” head coach Barry Smith said Monday evening of the impending changes. “There’s a possibility of four guys (being reassigned) but our numbers are so small we might wait a little bit longer on that.”
The Blazers, who dropped a 3-2 decision to the Rockets in Kelowna on Saturday, are carrying 18 forwards, including three at NHL camps and the injured Dalibor Bortnak (spleen) and Colin Smith (broken arm). Ten of the 18 were on the team’s playoff roster last spring.
There still are 11 defencemen — nine of them WHL veterans — on the roster, including two at NHL camps, and that is three or four too many.
Smith doesn’t anticipate having the five NHL prospects back in time to play in a weekend home-and-home series with the Prince George Cougars. So he will spend this week working on systems and preparing to ice a young roster in Prince George on Friday and here Saturday.
“We’re working on our systems because the young guys who are going to stay still have to learn that,” said Smith, adding that the club also is “working on our battle level, going over some faceoff stuff. What we really have to do is work a lot with the newer players who are going to be part of the team . . . really get into the systems with them and break it down a little bit more so when the guys get back everyone should be close to being on the same page.”
Smith admitted to being disappointed that he won’t have his roster together for at least one game before opening the regular season in Chilliwack against the Bruins on Sept. 18.
“I’m a little disappointed in that but we’ll have a whole week to work on things,” he said. “That’s the way it works, so . . .”
On Saturday, the Blazers lost for the fourth time in five exhibition games.
“I thought we played well,” Smith said. “We were young and they played a similar lineup as well. I liked our guys. The young kids played well, competed hard, did the right things.”
The short-staffed Rockets, with 12 players away, borrowed two former WHLers — defenceman Kevin Kraus, who played 36 games with the Blazers in 2006-07, and forward Jonathan Milhouse — from the BCHL’s Vernon Vipers.
The Rockets got goals from Jessey Astles, Shane McColgan and Brett Bulmer, while Neil Landry (shorthanded) and Richard Vanderhoek scored for the Blazers.
Kamloops goaltender Jon Groenheyde stopped 25 shots, including at third-period penalty shot by Spencer Main. Kelowna’s Adam Brown turned aside 20 shots.
It was the fifth straight game in which the Blazers (1-3-0-1) have been outshot.
Asked if his squad had played better than it had in losing 4-1 to visiting Chilliwack on Friday, Smith replied: “Oh yeah, a lot better. Just the way we played, with the urgency of our game and our positional play . . . I thought we were a lot better.”
JUST NOTES: Blazers captain Tyler Shattock scored St. Louis’ eighth goal in a 9-6 victory over the Dallas Stars at the annual NHL prospects tournament in Traverse City, Mich., on Sunday. Blazers D Zak Stebner didn’t get a point for the Stars but was plus-4. Kamloops D Giffen Nyren earned an assist on Minnesota’s first goal as the Wild beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 2-1. . . . Kamloops F Jimmy Bubnick didn’t figure in the scoring in either of the Atlanta Thrashers’ first two games in Traverse City. . . . Neither Stebner nor Nyren played Monday. . . . Blazers C C.J. Stretch didn’t figure in the scoring as his San Jose Sharks scored a 2-1 OT victory over the visiting Los Angeles Kings last night.