As the weekend, and the return of NHL games, nears, the Calgary Flames have made a pair of roster moves. On Friday morning, the club announced that they’ve called up forward Adam Klapka from the American Hockey League’s Calgary Wranglers. In a corresponding move, they’ve sent defenceman Yan Kuznetsov to the Wranglers.
Klapka returns to the NHL for his fifth stint on the Flames roster this season – he made the team out of training camp, and has been up and down from the club as the team has gotten healthy and then subsequently dealt with more injuries. A gigantic right shot winger, listed at 6’8″ and 230 pounds, Klapka has been a really useful player for the Wranglers over the past few seasons, serving as a top nine fixture and factoring into their power play.
At the NHL level, Klapka has appeared primarily on the fourth line, though he’s bumped up to the third line at times. So far this season, Klapka has one goal through 12 NHL games and 13 goals and 25 points through 25 AHL games.
Kuznetsov heads back to the Wranglers after being on the NHL roster for a couple days as a practice player. He was called up alongside Ilya Solovyov a couple days ago; their call-ups allowed for the team to have four full defensive pairings in practice, with Rasmus Andersson working his way back from Boston after the 4 Nations Face-Off and Tyson Barrie absent due to his waiver placement. But with the Wranglers headed on the road and Andersson likely being available for Saturday’s skate, this move makes sense.
As of this writing, the Flames have an active roster of 22 players: two goaltenders, eight defencemen and 12 forwards. Kevin Bahl and Connor Zary have been full participants in practices, but they’re still on the injury reserve list. Tyson Barrie is currently on waivers, with him either clearing or being claimed at noon MT on Friday.
The Flames are back in action on Sunday at home against San Jose.
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