{"id":207354,"date":"2025-10-07T19:45:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T19:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/207354\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T19:45:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T19:45:09","slug":"opening-night-roster-surprises-include-laba-of-rangers-cootes-of-canucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/207354\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening Night roster surprises include Laba of Rangers, Cootes of Canucks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lachance, 22, will look to make the jump from NCAA to the NHL this season and is off to a good start making the Devils roster.<\/p>\n<p>The forward had a goal and assists in two preseason games after sitting out part of training camp with an injury. He had 30 points (12 goals, 18 assists) in 40 games for Boston University last season.<\/p>\n<p>He was selected by the Edmonton Oilers in the sixth round (No. 186) of the 2021 NHL Draft, then traded to New Jersey on March 2, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s the NHL, it\u2019s the best league in the world and I was just trying to come in here with a good mindset and everyday coming in, keeping your head down and working as hard as you can, which I think is the biggest thing,\u201d Lachance said Friday. \u201cThere are no surprises yet, but you never know, take it day-by-day and always be ready for stuff to come at you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 18-year-old was selected by Nashville at No. 5 in the 2025 draft and played on the top line with veterans <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/filip-forsberg-8476887\" title=\"Filip Forsberg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Filip Forsberg<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/ryan-o-reilly-8475158\" title=\"Ryan O&#039;Reilly\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ryan O&#8217;Reilly<\/a> in camp.<\/p>\n<p>Martin had three points (two goals, one assist) in four preseason games for the Predators. He had 72 points (33 goals, 39 assists) in 57 games with Sault Ste. Marie of the Ontario Hockey League last season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think he\u2019s earned the opportunity to play, I think he\u2019s had a great camp,\u201d Predators coach Andrew Brunette said. \u201cObviously he\u2019s a young player that we\u2019re really excited for, and he came in and it was hard not to have him on that line and it was hard not to have him here today. We\u2019ll reevaluate with him every day, but we\u2019re super-excited, organizationally and all the coaching staff, to have him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 21-year-old appears ready to make the full-time jump to the NHL after a strong season in Coachella Valley of the AHL, where he had 44 points (28 goals, 16 assists) in 58 games. He also had six points (three goals, three assists) in 12 games for the Kraken last season.<\/p>\n<p>Nyman led Seattle with five points (four goals, one assist) in five preseason games. He was selected in the second round (No. 49) of the 2022 draft and is expected to play in a bottom-six role to start the season with the Kraken.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou saw him last year and then this year in training camp, too, he\u2019s got the size (6-foot-2, 212 pounds), and he\u2019s got the shot,\u201d Seattle GM Jason Botterill said of Nyman. \u201cThose are attributes we are excited to add to our team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lachance, 22, will look to make the jump from NCAA to the NHL this season and is off&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-207354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}