Guess who’s back?

After assigning them to the American Hockey League’s Calgary Wranglers last week, the Calgary Flames have recalled blueliner Jonathan Aspirot and forward Clark Bishop from the Wranglers. The moves were announced on Wednesday morning.

At first blush, calling up players you’ve already demoted to the minor league camp seems a bit odd. But for the Flames, it’s fairly simple. The club has two pre-season games left – away at Winnipeg on Wednesday evening and home to the Jets on Friday evening – and the general preference for the team is to avoid unnecessary travel for their key veteran players. (The season is a long enough grind without an extra same-day trip to and from Winnipeg.)

So with some roster decisions still in flux, the Flames opted to bring up a couple reliable veteran bodies to help what should be a pretty young Flames team navigate a game in Winnipeg against what’s likely to be a veteran-laden Jets club.

The pair or recalls bring the camp roster up to 37 players, including Martin Frk and Justin Kirkland (who both cleared waivers over the weekend) and Ilya Solovyov (placed on waivers earlier on Tuesday). They have to have a cap compliant, 23-man roster filed with the league’s central registry by 3 p.m. MT this coming Monday.