Bridgeport Bound: Islanders cut, release or otherwise ship a bunch of guys to the AHL

The Islanders trimmed their roster by six this morning, waiving two players, releasing one from his PTO and assigning three to the AHL’s Sound Tigers.

Defenseman Loic Leduc and forwards Carter Verhaeghe and Kyle Schempp were transferred to Bridgeport, forwards Bracken Kearns and Ben Holmstrom (the captain of the Sound Tigers last season) were placed on waivers and forward Josh Winquist was released from his PTO.

Basically, all of them will end up playing for Bridgeport unless Kearns and/or Holmstrom are claimed by another team. Winquist had a contract with the Sound Tigers before signing his try out deal with the Islanders. We didn’t talk much about him at the time he was signed, but the 22-year-old Winquist had a good showing in the AHL last season with Bakersfield, and could be a nice pick-up for Bridgeport.

The cuts get the team’s training camp roster down to 38 skaters and an insane six goalies, almost one for every day of the week. Although in fairness, two of those six are Jaroslav Halak and Thomas Greiss, who are just coming back from the World Cup of Hockey.

Twenty of those 38 will be playing in Bridgeport’s Webster Bank Arena tomorrow night in a preseason tilt against the Capitals. CSN Washington’s Tarik El-Bashir (whom the senior citizens around here might remember from his days covering the Islanders for the New York Times) posted the lineups for both teams and they’re each a mix of prospects and projected regulars (probably a few more of the latter on the Islanders).

One guy who won’t play is Shane Prince, who has sustained a lower body injury and is day-to-day per Jack Capuano.

Expect a few more cuts after the game. Although with Johnny Boychuk, Cal Clutterbuck and now Prince all banged up to some degree and four games remaining in the interminable two weeks between now and the regular season opener, maybe they’ll keep some dudes around.