Monarchs’ roster set in advance of Sunday’s opener

The Manchester Monarchs’ 2014-15 roster has been set in advance of tomorrow’s opener at Wilkes Barre/Scranton.

Goaltenders
Patrik Bartosak
Jean-Francois Berube

Defensemen
Colin Miller
Derek Forbort
Kevin Gravel
Vincent LoVerde
Andrew Bodnarchuk
Nick Ebert
Kevin Raine
Jeff Schultz

Forwards
Zach O’Brien
Josh Gratton
David Van der Gulik
Sean Backman
Jordan Weal
Vincent Arseneau
Andrew Crescenzi
Brian O’Neill
Ryan Horvat
Scott Sabourin
Nic Dowd
Michael Mersch

There was excellent competition on defense throughout Los Angeles’ and Manchester’s training camp, and it ended with Alex Roach (2011 / free agent signing) being sent to ECHL-Ontario, where he’ll receive a good workload, and Zachary Leslie (2013 / 6th round) and Kurtis MacDermid (2012 / free agent signing) returning to junior hockey. Leslie will re-join a Guelph squad that lost in the championship game of the Memorial Cup last year, and MacDermid will return to an Erie team where he’ll be a teammate of uber-prospect Connor McDavid, so both will serve as workhorses as they continue their development.

“Leslie is going to go back and play a lot of minutes there. He can work on his strength. They have a new program there set up during the day.” said Rob Blake, the Kings’ Assistant General Manager and Manchester’s General Manager. “And same with MacDermid, he’s missed a lot of hockey with injuries in Junior. He hasn’t played a full few years in junior. So this will give him another opportunity, but it is the development path.”

“I think the key things for [Leslie and MacDermid] is competitive teams [on which] they’re going to get a lot of ice time.”

Maxim Kitsyn (2010 / 6th round) was also assigned to Ontario. The Reign’s season opens on Saturday, October 25 against Idaho.

Kevin Raine will open the year in the AHL after following a strong rookie camp and training camp in Los Angeles with a strong camp in Manchester.

“Yeah, he had a good camp for us, a guy that Mike Futa has monitored for the last few years,” Blake said. “He came in and earned himself a tryout, then he earned himself an AHL contract, and now he’s going to work on other things.”

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