Kris Versteeg leaves game with lower-body injury

The Calgary Flames are continuing their stretch of pretty solid play tonight against the San Jose Sharks, but they’ve finally been bit by the injury bug.

Winger Kris Versteeg left the game after the first period after seemingly suffering a lower-body injury on a rather innocuous play.

Here’s where the injury occurred:

Versteeg has been fairly good playing primarily on his off-wing (the left side) alongside Sam Bennett and Troy Brouwer, providing a pretty solid two-way presence along with some physicality. His absence would hurt the Flames dearly before back-to-back games against Los Angeles and Anaheim this weekend.

Worse yet, the Flames only have $8,266 in cap space (when you exclude bonuses) so they don’t really have enough cap space to recall any extra bodies from the American Hockey League’s Stockton Heat without placing somebody (either Versteeg or Ladislav Smid, perhaps) on the long-term injured reserve for the cap relief.