Jaromir Jagr’s return looming, roster moves pending

The Calgary Flames will have to make some tweaks to their roster soon. Jaromir Jagr is on the injured reserve and now that he’s been on for the minimum one week term, he’s eligible to be activated from it at any time. He participated in full practice on Friday and Saturday and he’s looking close to a return.

For him to be activated, the Flames need to have a roster spot open for him. How they get there could involve a few wrinkles.

Right now, the only players that don’t require waivers to be assigned to the American Hockey League are Mark Jankowski and Matthew Tkachuk. Tkachuk is definitely not going to the AHL. Jankowski came up when Jagr went on the IR, so it seems like the simplest and cleanest move.

Jankowski’s usage has also suggested he might be the first guy down anyway. In his three games, he’s played 11:38, 12:16 and 7:53 in tight-checking games against three good teams. He generated one shot combined in his three games, even though his possession numbers were strong in two of them.

“He got three tough buildings and three tight-checking games,” said Glen Gulutzan of Jankowski’s performance through three games. “He’s going to have to work, when I say work I mean he’ll have to think about the league now. It’s not like it was a month ago, so things are getting tighter. The West is tight. He’ll adapt to finding certain ways, certain areas he has to go to on a continual basis to find chances… He’s just going to have to work through those things. That’s part of it for a young guy.”

Calgary’s most frequent healthy scratches among forwards are Tanner Glass, Curtis Lazar, Freddie Hamilton and Matt Stajan. It’s possible that one of those gentlemen could be sent to the farm instead of Jankowski, but all four of them would need to clear waivers before going down. Somebody would need to be on waivers the day before Jagr is activated in order to open a roster spot – it’s silly and technical, but a player needs to clear waivers in order to be sent down to open the spot so there’s a day of delay before the spot opens up. If Jagr’s going to be activated for Sunday’s game against Washington, Jankowski’s going down.

Stajan, given his $3.125 million NHL salary, is probably the least likely to head to the farm given the Flames would still have $2.075 million of his salary still on their NHL cap.

The third option is that somebody else will be placed on the IR. This is an unlikely option considering that the Flames had all hands on deck for Saturday’s practice. But considering that this is a time of year where the bumps and bruises might start piling up, you can’t completely discount the possibility.