An announcement from the Calgary Flames on Friday morning contained good news and bad news. The good news is the club has recalled Alan Quine from the American Hockey League’s Stockton Heat. The bad news is not only is Austin Czarnik out with an injury, he’s been placed on the long-term injury reserve.
The #Flames have recalled Alan Quine from the @AHLHeat. Place Austin Czarnik on long-term IR.https://t.co/kJz46WGQEr
— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) October 25, 2019
Czarnik left the Flames’ 6-5 win over Florida on Thursday night after two periods with a lower body injury. Since he’s been placed on the LTIR, the suspicion is that the injury is fairly significant. Placing Czarnik on LTIR allows the Flames to exceed the cap ceiling by up to the full $1.25 million of Czarnik’s cap hit during the period he’s on LTIR. Czarnik will have to remain on the LTIR for a minimum of 10 games (or 24 days). Once he’s ready to return, they’ll have to wrangle themselves back into cap compliance. (That piece itself is complicated, so we’ll get into the weeds of that in the near future.)
Notable? Juuso Valimaki, out for awhile after ACL surgery, is still not on the LTIR.
In positive news, here comes Quine! Quine was briefly recalled last week for the Flames’ game in Anaheim where he played quite well in his third game in three nights. At this point of his career Quine is very much what he is: a reliable, versatile player. There might not be a lot of untapped potential in him, but he can do a lot for a hockey club and he’s extremely useful, flexible depth for the Flames right now.
