Look out Miller, here comes Goehring

By Chris

The Sabres sent six players back to Rochester today. Forwards Pat "The Hammer" Kaleta, Dylan Hunter, defensemen Mike Card, Marc-Andre Gragnani, Mike Weber and Adam Dennis all joined the Amerks ranks, waiting for their next chance to make it with the big club. Philip Gogulla and Feliz Schultz also returned to their clubs in January.

That leaves the Sabres with 28 players still in camp:

Thomas Vanek
Derek Roy
Maxim Afinogenov
Ales Kotalik
Tim Connolly
Jason Pominville
Jochen Hecht
Paul Gaustad
Drew Stafford
Andrew Peters
Adam Mair
Mike Ryan
Dan Paille
Clarke MacArthur
Marek Zagrapan
Mark Mancari

Henrik Tallinder
Brian Campbell
Jaroslav Spacek
Toni Lydman
Dmitri Kalinin
Nathan Paestch
Teppo Numminen
Andrej Sekera
Mike Funk

Ryan Miller
Jocelyn Thibault
Karl Goehring

No real surprises, per say. With Numminen out, Sekera and Funk should continue to battle it out that 7th defensive spot as expected. The Sabres seem to want longer looks at forwards Mancari and Zagrapan, which is fine. While I want to like Mancari, he still seems to be a vey raw player who is still a ways away from making an impact. Zags is a great talent and a guy who may be ready by midseason to step in for the big club. So I don't have any problem keeping them around.

What does confuse me a little bit is the decision to keep Goehring up over Dennis. Goehring, who played for the Syracuse Crunch last season, didn't expect a call from Sabres and now appears to be taking full advantage of his situation.

With Dennis and the Panthers' David Shantz already in Rochester, there might not be room for him on the farm. So right now it looks like he's just around for the ride, stuck between a rock and a hard place, and essentially just auditioning for other teams. So good luck to Goehring, maybe we'll get a chance to see what he can do on Wednesday.