Flames Recall Grant, Shinkaruk and more!

Ask and you shall receive. Yesterday Pat Steinberg wrote that he’d like to see Derek Grant, Brett Kulak and Hunter Shinkaruk get a chance to play some games before the Flames season end. Well, all of those guys, (plus Emile Poirier) were called up by Calgary from Stockton today. 

Which is surprising, because the Flames only had two “real” recalls left. That’s why, of the four players, only Grant has been “officially” recalled, with Kulak, Poirier and Shinkaruk up on an “emergency” basis. That means the Flames are shutting down a handful of players due to injury, likely for a few games at least. Guess who they are in the comments! Also – the league’s recall limit is stupidly easy to circumvent and therefore more or less a waste of time.

It’s interesting to see Poirier get the call ahead of a guy like Drew Shore. Both guys have struggled to live up to preseason expectations this year, but Shore is older with more experience. That said, Shore has actually outscored Poirier this year with five more points in three less games. Nevertheless, it’s the second year pro who gets a chance to see what he can do in the show.

This move signals the Flames brass have a bit of faith in Poirier moving forward and likely hope to give him a confidence boost to re-ignite his development. In contrast, this might signal that the team doesn’t really see Shore as a prospect anymore. Freddie Hamilton, Garnet Hathaway, Derek Grant, Hunter Shinkaruk, Kenny Agostino and now Poirier have all been called up ahead of the 25 year old C/RWer. He might get another contract as depth/AHL filler, but we can safely move on from Shore as a player of interest in the system. 

QUICK UPDATE – The AHL website says Hathaway and Hamilton will been sent back down to Stockton. Maybe half the Flames roster isn’t injured after all…