On Monday night, the Calgary Flames defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs to run their winning streak to four in a row. On Tuesday morning, in light of a return to the lineup in Monday’s game, the Flames made a roster move.

Last Sunday night, late in the Flames’ win over Carolina, captain Mikael Backlund suffered a minor upper body injury on a hit from William Carrier. Backlund missed the last few minutes of the game due to his injury, and rookie Jonathan Castagna stepped into Backlund’s shutdown role and helped lock down the win.

Backlund was deemed day-to-day by the Flames’ medical staff and forward Ben Jones, at the time the Calgary Wranglers’ leading scorer, was summoned from the AHL farm team. With the other three forward lines working fairly well, the Flames coaching staff opted to place Jones into the lineup in Backlund’s spot, centring Joel Farabee and Matt Coronato.

As Backlund recuperated, Jones played twice, playing 10:45 in their win over Minnesota and 13:48 in their win over Detroit. He didn’t register any points, but his line kept the other team off the scoresheet, with an even rating in his two games. Backlund returned to the lineup against Toronto, with Jones sitting as a healthy scratch.

Jones is a player who requires waivers to go to the AHL. He cleared waivers initially at the start of the season, which gives him 30 days on the NHL roster before he requires waivers again. Rather than have him sit on the active roster as healthy scratch and run his waiver clock further, the Flames are sending him back to the AHL to stay ready – and to freeze his waiver clock. He was on the active roster for seven days, so the Flames still have oodles of flexibility in terms of how they can utilize Jones.

With this roster move, the Flames’ active roster is at 22 players: two goaltenders, seven defencemen and 13 forwards. They’re back in action on Wednesday when they visit the Edmonton Oilers.