Flames place Jaromir Jagr on injured reserve

It appears that the lower body injury that caused Calgary Flames winger Jaromir Jagr to leave Saturday’s game with the Minnesota Wild is going to linger for a little while. According to the roster listing on National Hockey League’s media site, the Flames have placed Jagr on the injured reserve list.

Per the terms of the IR, Jagr will miss at least a week – meaning he won’t be eligible to play in any of the three Flames games this week (Tuesday in Nashville, Wednesday in St. Louis or Friday at home against Dallas).

The move also opens up a roster spot for the Flames to recall a forward for the upcoming road trip. Given that Jagr is a winger it’s logical to presume that Calgary will summon a winger from the American Hockey League’s Stockton Heat – potentially someone like Andrew Mangiapane or Garnet Hathaway who have been tearing it up on the wings of Stockton’s top line. They may also choose to bring up someone like Morgan Klimchuk who plays more of a 200-foot game and was very good last season (and has been this season) but not able to see any NHL action due to few forward injuries in Calgary. It’s impossible to replicate Jagr’s skill-set, so it’ll be interesting to see what they do.

They could also potentially recall Mark Jankowski, who was their best player in camp that didn’t make the NHL roster. Jankowski’s a center, but played left wing a bit in college. He could come up and play on the wing, or the Flames could use him as a center and potentially bump somebody else to the wing.

If I were a betting man (and I’m presuming they’re not going to abandon Sam Bennett as a center quite yet), I’d put money on Mangiapane or Klimchuk coming up with Kris Versteeg sliding over to play on the right side. We’ll have more on this story as it develops.