After a day off following their victory over the Carolina Hurricanes, the Calgary Flames have made a pair of roster moves as they begin preparations for Thursday’s visit from the Minnesota Wild.

The club has formally placed winger Sam Honzek on the injury reserve list – this move was made on Monday afternoon – and they’ve recalled forward Ben Jones from the American Hockey League’s Calgary Wranglers.

So there are a few things probably going on at once, so let’s go through them in turn.

Why have the Flames placed Honzek on the IR? Well, it opens up a roster spot. Honzek was hurt back on Oct. 8 against Colorado, over a week ago, but the Flames have kept him on the active roster until now because they were already carrying an extra healthy defenceman and forward on their roster. Moving Honzek on the IR wasn’t necessary from a roster management perspective. (Honzek has already missed the one-week minimum players need to miss while on the IR, so he would be eligible to be activated whenever he’s cleared for action.)

Well, Mikael Backlund took a hit from William Carrier late in the third period of Sunday’s game, and he didn’t hit the ice for the final 3:16 of the game. Considering the Flames were protecting a one goal lead and looking for their first home win, Backlund’s absence in that game situation is pretty significant. (Aside: Jonathan Castagna did a great job thrust into that position in his fifth NHL game.)

While we haven’t gotten any announcements yet from the Flames – which is not unusual, as they were off on Monday – Backlund spoke with our Swedish colleagues at Expressen and indicated it’s not a major injury. But in the event that Backlund is unable to play against Minnesota on Thursday, the Flames would need to have another healthy forward on the roster in case somebody gets sick last-minute or hurt in warm-up, so they needed to put Honzek on the IR to call someone up as insurance.

And the person called up as insurance? 27-year-old Ben Jones, who’s on a five game scoring streak and has seven goals (and two assists) in seven games this season. He’s currently top 10 in the AHL in points and one goal off the league lead. He’s a left shot centre who’s played 56 career NHL games, including 54 games over the two previous seasons when he was with the Minnesota Wild. If you need someone up short-term and maybe don’t want to potentially disrupt a younger player’s momentum, Jones feels like a great option. (On Monday’s first hour of Flames Now, your pal Pat Steinberg mapped out some call-up options, including Jones, and the rationales behind each option.)

The Flames have 23 players on their active roster: two goaltenders, seven defencemen and 14 forwards (including Backlund). Honzek and Jonathan Huberdeau are on the injury reserve list.

The Flames are back in action on Thursday against Minnesota.