The Calgary Flames will be without perhaps their best player for the remainder on the season.

On Friday night, defenceman Kevin Bahl was conspicuously absent from the ice for warm-up, with teammate Joel Hanley pressed into service on 15 minutes notice. On Sunday morning, the Flames shed some light on Bahl’s situation.

He’s out for the season after rupturing his Achilles tendon on Friday.

When asked after Sunday’s morning skate, Flames head coach Ryan Huska indicated the injury occurred while Bahl was warming up prior to Friday’s game.

“Warming up,” said Huska. “It’s kind of a freak thing. You don’t hear of that really ever.”

To say that Bahl’s injury leaves a big hole in the Flames’ lineup is a massive understatement. Through 17 games, Bahl has been leaned on heavily. He’s used for most of the tough match-ups against the opposition’s best players. His zone starts are heavily skewed towards the defensive zone. He takes a ton of penalty kill shifts, too.

Bahl averages 21:56 of ice time per game, heavily skewed towards even strength (19:27) and the penalty kill (2:27). He’s played a big part in the growth the Flames have seen in young defender Simon Nemec, who he’s played almost all of his even strength minutes alongside this season.

“I would say he was or he is one of the reasons why I’m really growing… without the puck,” said Nemec. “So I think he’s like perfect fit for me. Like he’s really good skater. He can make a play, but he can defend hard. And I think he really helped me after that tough start, I would say.”

“You’re gutted for the guy,” said Zach Whitecloud. “And I mean, obviously, you’re selfishly gutted for the team. He’s such a big part of this team. He plays a lot of minutes. I mean, we can sit here and forget about the hockey player for a second. Just think about the person. You know, loses his season and being around the guys consistently and all that stuff. So make sure as a group we’re taking care of him and making sure he has whatever he needs to continue to feel involved and be a part of this group because he’s going to be here for a long, long time. So important part of our group and just an incredible guy. And obviously you’re just, yeah, it’s heartbreaking for him. And he’s having one of his best seasons too. So obviously it sucks and just try to take care of him as a teammate.”

“He’s doing fine, I mean as fine as he can be,” said Huska. “It was just a terrible break for a guy that I would consider our best player up to this point of the season. And unfortunately sometimes things happen and because of that we’re using a really good player for the rest of the year. So it’s a tough situation for him for sure, but he’s doing fine. It’s just a matter now of waiting to get the surgery done on him.”

With Bahl out for the season the Flames will, for now, retain their defensive pairings from Friday’s game against Anaheim: Hanley with Nemec, Jake Middleton with Whitecloud, and Yan Kuznetsov with Zayne Parekh, with Brayden Pachal called up to be the seventh defender. But considering the heavy lifting Bahl did throughout the Flames lineup, time will tell if things need to be shuffled around as things move forward.

The 26-year-old Bahl is in the second year of a six year, $5.35 million AAV contract with the Flames.

The Flames host the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday night at the Saddledome.

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