After making five cuts on Tuesday, there are only a handful of players still remaining that are not locks for the NHL roster.

Paul Branecky

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Those include top young prospects Zach Boychuk, Jamie McBain and Brandon Sutter, and veteran hopefuls Patrick Dwyer, Jay Harrison and Michael Ryan.

Of that group, it was a little bit surprising to see McBain, who is about to begin his first full NHL season, stick around longer than Brett Carson and Bryan Rodney, who both earned a few games of NHL experience last season. However, General Manager Jim Rutherford said not to read into that, as McBain has only appeared in one exhibition game and the team simply wanted a longer look at a player who is in his first NHL training camp following three seasons at the University of Wisconsin.

“From the rookie camp to where he is now we can see improvement,” said Rutherford of McBain. “We just wanted to give him a little bit more time, and he’ll eventually go to Albany.”

While he’ll also likely start in Albany, it appears that the 26-year-old Harrison has taken the inside track to becoming the team’s seventh defenseman and first call-up from Albany should the need arise. Rutherford said that he has played “extremely well” in each of the team’s two exhibition matches.

Ryan sticks around despite suffering what Rutherford believes is a concussion very early in last night’s 4-2 loss in Atlanta. He’s listed as day-to-day.

Also headed back to Albany today are young forward Drayson Bowman, who played his first exhibition game of the season last night on a line with fellow forward prospects Boychuk and Sutter, along with depth forward Steven Goertzen and third-string goaltender Justin Peters.

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