Tuesday with the Phantoms

GLENS FALLS -- Four days before their AHL season opener, the Adirondack Phantoms are at 27 players thanks to several recent roster moves.

The parent Philadelphia Flyers assigned forwards Jason Ward, Lukas Kaspar, David Laliberte and Patrick Maroon to Glens Falls, and released nine others who had been skating with the club on a training camp tryout.

None of Ward, Kaspar, Laliberte and Maroon were at the Glens Falls Civic Center for today's off-ice workout.

Among the players let go was forward Andrew Lord, an RPI graduate who played for ECHL Wheeling last season; and forward Aaron Clarke and defenseman Ryan McGinnis, who each spent time with the Albany River Rats in 2008-09. Clarke had five points (2g, 3a) in 22 games, while McGinnis had five assists and was minus-11 in 21 games.

Also released were defensemen Jamie Fritsch and Slavomir Tomko and forwards Bryan Marshall, Michael Mullen, Anthony Perdicaro and Chase Watson.

"Ideally you want to be at 22 or 23 [players] at the most," head coach Greg Gilbert said. "If [the Flyers] want us to carry some extra guys with the roster situation and the number of players that are under contract, then so be it. Ideally you want to be at 22, 23; maybe one guy at each position, if not two."

Due to rain, the Phantoms postponed a team-building outing on the rope course at the Adirondack Extreme Adventure Course in Bolton Landing scheduled for this afternoon until Monday, Oct. 5.

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Gilbert was unsure whether veteran defenseman Randy Jones, who cleared NHL waivers, will join Adirondack.

Jones, 28, has played 217 games in the NHL and 147 in the AHL, all in the Philadelphia organization, since leaving Clarkson University in 2003. All but two of his games since 2006 have been in the majors.

"I don't know yet. I haven't heard anything concrete whether Randy will be coming down or what the siatuation is," Gilbert said. "I'm sure that will get sorted out here in the next few days."

Jones would add a veteran presence to mostly young Phantoms blue line that includes highly regarded rookies Kevin Marshall and Marc-Andre Bourdon.

"If he ends up coming down, he's the kind of guy where he's played a couple hundred NHL games," defenseman Joey Mormina said. "For him it'll be a little different being down here, but I'd expect him be pretty dominant on the power play. He's been around hockey long enough where he'll adjust and he'll be very valuable for us."

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Mormina returned to Adirondack on Monday after seeing 15:06 of ice time in the Flyers preseason game on Sept. 26 against New Jersey.

"It was good," he said. "I played some pretty good minutes. I played a little bit of power play and played a regular shift. I felt comfortable out there. It was an opportunity to show the organization what kind of player I was and I thought I played my game.

"I think when you come into a camp, you always want to show what you can do and the best place to do that is in a game. I was finally able to do that and show that I'm reliable defensively. I moved the puck well with a good first pass. I tried to play physical down low and just tried to play within myself, I guess."

Originally drafted by the Flyers in 2002, Mormina has played for AHL teams in Manchester, Albany and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, where he spent last season. He will be the first player to skate for both the River Rats and Adirondack since the Phantoms' relocation from Philadelphia.

"It's weird that it's home now. I played here three times with Albany, just kind of visiting. It feels kind of nice that it's home. It's a pretty good setup," he said. Mormina skated in the first of back-to-back preseason games between Adirondack and Albany last weekend. The two Northway rivals will meet a dozen times during the regular season.

"Even the game here at home, I thought it was pretty intense; pretty chippy after the whistle and guys were into it," he said. "I can just imagine what it's going to be like in game 12. It's right up the road, so we're going to be battling the same guys all year. It'll be interesting to see what happens."

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Maybe more than most of the new players, Jared Ross, the AHL All-Star Game MVP in January who led Philadelphia in scoring with 69 points (29g, 40a) in 64 games last season, is well aware of the AHL's storied history in Glens Falls.

Ross' uncle, Tom Ross, skated in three games for the Adirondack Red Wings in their 1979-80 debut season, picking up a goal and an assist. Most of that season, Ross spent with the IHL's Kalamazoo Wings, where he scored 103 points (43g, 60a) in 63 games.

"He has mentioned it to me before," Jared Ross said. "He said he was only here for a few games, but it was a nice area.

"I think there's a lot of hype having the team here. People from here or who have been around here for a while, they know the tradition of hockey in Adirondack. I played one game here when I was in the UHL four or five years ago so I know there has been some history ... and I know that people are excited to have it come back."

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With Boyd Kane departed for Hershey, the Phantoms are looking for a new captain, though a decision may not come before Saturday's regular-season opener at home against Worcester.

"We're going over that situation right now," Gilbert said. "We'll be discussing that over the next couple of days and hopefully have something set in stone before the opener. But if not, we'll go with three alternates for the first game and then get it sorted out after that."

Ross wore an alternate's 'A' last season, along with defensemen Nate Guenin, who is now in Pittsburgh's organization, and Danny Syvret, still with the parent Flyers. Mormina, Ward, Krys Kolanos and Jonathan Matsumoto would be other letter candidates.