Flames return Linden Vey to the Stockton Heat

It’s an off day for the Calgary Flames but there has been a tiny bit of roster news.

The Flames announced today that they’ve reassigned forward Linden Vey to the American Hockey League’s Stockton Heat.

Vey was originally summoned from Stockton on Nov. 9 after the Flames lost Kris Versteeg and Lance Bouma on a California road trip. He dressed for four games and amassed zero points, playing primarily bottom six minutes alongside Matt Stajan and Alex Chiasson. He mostly worked as a center during his time in the lineup, but only won 37.5% of his draws. That alone probably was enough to park him on the sidelines, despite his decent underlying numbers.

His reassignment to the AHL isn’t necessarily related to roster limits, as the team would easily be able to accommodate Versteeg’s return to the active roster by placing Johnny Gaudreau on the injured reserve (if they haven’t done that already). 

That said, Vey’s been an extra body on three occasions. Combine that with Hunter Shinkaruk and Garnet Hathaway making better in-game impressions and the Flames burning up valuable LTIR cap space by having extra bodies around, and it doesn’t make much sense to carry Vey on the NHL roster for longer than was absolutely necessary.

He’ll return to a white-hot Stockton team that will likely love to have another established player around.