Do you remember Chris Butler?
Every week, we’ll look at a forgotten Calgary Flames player in the weekly series “A Flame From the Past.” Of course, the player had to have played a significant number of games for the Flames – at least a full season. Each week, I’ll put every Flames season (since moving to Calgary) in the Wheel of Names. This week, it landed on the 2012-13 season, with the player we’ll look at in today’s article being Chris Butler.
Butler was born in St. Louis Missouri in 1986 and played junior hockey with the Sioux City Musketeers for two seasons. In 2003-04, the left-shot defenceman scored three goals and nine points in 55 games, following that up with six goals and 28 points in 60 games during his draft season.
The Buffalo Sabres selected Butler with the 96th overall pick in the 2005 draft. However, he spent three seasons with the University of Denver, scoring 20 goals and 66 points in 115 games. His career high came in his sophomore season in 2006-07, scoring 10 goals and 27 points.
Butler’s first professional season was split between the Portland Pirates of the American Hockey League and the Sabres. Starting the season in the AHL, he scored two goals and 12 points in 27 games. With the Sabres, Butler scored two goals and six points in 47 games.
The next season, he scored one goal and 21 points in 59 games, the latter being a career-high. His final season with the Sabres came in 2010-11, scoring two goals and nine points in 49 games, along with an assist in his only seven post-season games.
After the 2010-11 season, Butler was traded to the Flames in a package that included Paul Byron for Robyn Regehr. In his first season with the Flames, Butler scored two goals and 15 points in 68 games. During the 2012-13 lockout, he went to play for Karlskrona HK in the second-tier of Sweden, playing just five games for them.
Butler returned to the Flames when the season resumed, scoring a goal and eight points in 44 games. His final season with the Flames came in 2013-14, where he scored two goals and 16 points in 82 games.
Before the 2014-15 season, Butler signed with the St. Louis Blues, the final organization he played for in his career. He spent the majority of his season in the NHL, scoring three goals and nine points in 33 games, but played an additional 14 games with their AHL team, the Chicago Wolves.
For the first time in the left-shot defenceman’s career, Butler spent the majority of a season in the AHL in 2015-16, scoring four goals and 18 points in 46 games while playing just five games in the NHL that season. That decreased to one game in 2016-17, playing 72 games with the Wolves where he scored five goals and 26 points.
In 2017-18, Butler played six games in the NHL and scored eight goals and 29 points in 61 games with the San Antonio Rampage of the AHL, the Blues’ new AHL team. Butler’s final season came in 2018-19, scoring two goals and 21 points in 51 games in the AHL and playing 13 games with the Blues with a goal and two points. Although he didn’t play a playoff game, he got to skate with the Stanley Cup as the Blues won their first Stanley Cup in franchise history. Less than a month later, Butler retired.
Since retiring, Butler has served as a scout with the Arizona Coyotes. Beginning in the summer of 2022, Butler serves as one of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ development coaches. It wasn’t a flashy career but getting a ring and a job in the sport after his playing days was a pretty successful career.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for FlamesNation, Oilersnation, and Blue Jays Nation. They can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.
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