Flames make a few more roster moves

Following their second-to-last pre-season game of the 2019 calendar, the Calgary Flames made a trio of roster moves on Friday morning. They’ve placed defenseman Brandon Davidson on waivers. They’ve assigned goalie Jon Gillies, who cleared waivers yesterday, to the minors, And they returned the eight players they summoned on Thursday back to Stockton.

Davidson was signed as a depth option this summer, but didn’t set the world on fire in camp or his exhibition outings. He’ll be a solid veteran mentor for a pretty youthful Stockton blueline group next season. His assignment leaves the Flames with eight defensemen in camp: Rasmus Andersson, Mark Giordano, TJ Brodie, Travis Hamonic, Michael Stone, Noah Hanifin, Oliver Kylington and try-out Andrew MacDonald. One of Kylington or MacDonald will be the odd man out here.

Speaking of odd man out, Gillies was shelled in his pair of pre-season outings. He’s ostensibly the third string netminder behind David Rittich and Cam Talbot by virtue of his NHL experience, but he’s being hotly pursued for that gig by Tyler Parsons and Artyom Zagidulin. He’ll be hard-pressed to get off to a good start in the AHL or he could lose his spot. The Flames’ assignment of Gillies to the AHL cements Rittich and Talbot as the NHL tandem, as if that wasn’t already clear.

Up front, the Flames have a handful of minor decisions left to make, as we alluded to earlier today.

The Flames hit the ice for one last practice game on Saturday night against the Edmonton Oilers. The roster deadline is Tuesday, Oct. 1 at 3 p.m. MT. They open the regular season on Thursday, Oct. 3 against the Colorado Avalanche.