Kris Versteeg back to Calgary, Freddie Hamilton in versus Kings

The Calgary Flames hit the ice for an optional practice at the Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo, California earlier today. One major topic of conversation between Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan and the assembled media appears to be the status of winger Kris Versteeg, who left last night’s game in San Jose with a lower-body injury.

In short? He won’t be available for tomorrow’s game against his old team, the Los Angeles Kings.

The Flames aren’t immediately calling anybody up from their American Hockey League affiliate in nearby Stockton, so Freddie Hamilton will slot back into the lineup. But that doesn’t rule out further changes for Sunday’s game in Anaheim.

In other news:

First things first: the general logic behind Grossmann rotating back in is probably something like this: the Kings are a big, physical team and they want to fight fire with fire. Plus, the Flames are playing two tough opponents (the Kings and Ducks) on back-to-back nights, so it makes sense to rotate bodies in and try to keep as many fresh legs available for Sunday’s game as possible.

That said, Grossmann isn’t a great skater (or defender, if we’re being honest) and dressing him against a divisional rival is building a vulnerability into their lineup from the get-go. The logic behind the move is coherent, but it’s still not a great move. Calgary’s three pairings worked really nicely against San Jose, and putting Grossmann into the lineup makes at least one of them worse – at least one because adding him might change around all of the pairings as a consequence. He’s played almost exclusively with Dougie Hamilton so far this season, so if he slots in it would likely be Jyrki Jokipakka moving into the press box.

In terms of Elliott? Johnson played well on Thursday in what was termed a “scheduled start” by Gulutzan prior to the game. Elliott has played back-to-back games frequently in his career, and has done so earlier this season, and barring anything unforeseen I would expect him to play against both Los Angeles and Anaheim over the weekend.