Local product Bodie cut loose

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This article was published 06/10/2011 (5462 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Troy Bodie’s dream of wearing the colours of his favourite team as a kid officially vanished on Wednesday.

The Winnipeg Jets opted to let his contract expire rather than sign the Portage la Prairie product, meaning the 26-year-old forward is now without a hockey address.

A NHL vet with 107 games under his belt with both Anaheim and Carolina, Bodie scored one goal in the pre-season and showed a level of toughness that should make him appealing to another organization, either at the big-league level or in the AHL.

All NHL teams had to declare their 23-man rosters on Wednesday and the Jets, in addition to making the move with Bodie, placed Eric Fehr and Aaron Gagnon on injured reserve while Kenndal McArdle and Ben Maxwell are listed as day-to-day.

Winnipeg currently has 13 forwards, eight defencemen and two goaltenders on its roster, also confirming Wednesday that veteran netminder David Aebischer had signed an AHL contract and been assigned to the St. John’s IceCaps.

THE SQUAD… FOR NOW

Goaltenders

29 Ondrej Pavelec

50 Chris Mason

Defencemen

4 Zach Bogosian

5 Mark Stuart

6 Ron Hainsey

7 Derek Meech

12 Randy Jones

29 Johnny Oduya

33 Dustin Byfuglien

39 Tobias Enstrom

Forwards

8 Alex Burmistrov

9 Evander Kane

13 Kyle Wellwood

14 Tim Stapleton

15 Tanner Glass

16 Andrew Ladd

18 Bryan Little

19 Jim Slater

22 Chris Thorburn

26 Blake Wheeler

28 Patrice Cormier

55 Mark Scheifele

80 Nik Antropov

Injured reserve

17 Eric Fehr

23 Kenndal McArdle

42 Aaron Gagnon

49 Ben Maxwell

— MORE OFFENCE, PLEASE: The Jets are hoping to get a boost in numbers from veteran centre/winger Nik Antropov, whose totals fell from 67 points in 2009-10 to 41 last year.

“I just hope he has a productive year,” said head coach Claude Noel. “For me, it’s not only scoring — and I know he’s a scoring type — but he’s a good, reliable player. So if he scores, great, and if he doesn’t we’ll help him score.”

— Tait