Practice Notes – April 13 2015

The Calgary Flames practiced today as they begin to prepare to do battle with the Vancouver Canucks starting on Wednesday night.

Here’s the brass tacks of what went on.

No Sean Monahan or Kris Russell with the main practice group today, though both of them (along with Mark Giordano, Karri Ramo and Paul Byron) reportedly skated prior to the main group. All five have locker room stalls, so the 25 stalls in the main room are being supplemented by folding chairs right now.

With that duo missing, here’s what lines looked like for the most part:

Gaudreau – Shore – Hudler
Bennett – Backlund – Colborne
Bollig – Granlund – Jooris
Ferland – Stajan – Jones
(Extra: Raymond)

Wotherspoon – Wideman
Brodie – Engelland
Schlemko – Potter

So, at least right now, Bennett appears to be in. But it could be just one practice or could be Hartley’s gamesmanship. He admitted post-practice that he’s doing some experimenting, and some lines are locked in and some are being tried out.

Line-up decisions will be made on Tuesday night, he noted. And both he and GM Brad Treliving confirmed that all injured players are “day-to-day.” Of course, both said that with a wide grin, so take that for what it’s worth. We won’t likely get any injury specifics until the playoffs are done completely for these guys.

In other news: Treliving spoke with media post-practice as well. He confirmed that Garnet Hathaway’s deal is for two years beginning next season, and that he’s unavailable to join the team and play in the playoffs because he wasn’t on the team’s reserve list at the trade deadline. But Jon Gillies would be available because he was on the reserve list, though I think that was stated as a hypothetical. In terms of Gillies, he had nothing to report, but did say that the team is going to figure things out with its collegiate players in the next few days and then make decisions on other players. I asked about AHLer Taylor Vause, and in terms of other AHLers, they need to wait and see with the college kids before moving forward on anything else.

The team practices again tomorrow before heading out to Vancouver tomorrow afternoon to prep for the series.