With Micheal Ferland’s mumps scare over and Matthew Tkachuk coming back from suspension, the Flames made a minor move this morning and returned Garnet Hathaway to the Stockton Heat.

The move, while expected, was a waste of time for all involved.

The issue is that the Flames spent a regular recall on Hathaway. Since they had 12 active forwards, they couldn’t use an emergency recall until one of the 12 went down. Hathaway came up as the thirteenth forward, so he was a regular recall. The Flames only have two of those left, having already burnt one on Rasmus Andersson (speaking of, when is he going to get a shot in the lineup?). Knock on wood, but if there’s any sort of roster crisis from here on out, the Flames will have limited options.

And why even use a regular recall if they’re not going to play him? I understand bringing him up for insurance purposes, but if you’re going to drag the guy across time zones on a whim, you might as well give him ice time. Especially if the other two options are Curtis Lazar and Freddie Hamilton, all various shades of grey.

The silver lining to this is that Matthew Tkachuk will be back in the lineup tomorrow, and will be back to raising hell. The first line will have 50% more M-power and will return to hurricane-level destructive force.