Folks, the Calgary Flames are making more roster moves. The Flames have placed Sam Bennett on the long-term injury reserve and recalled forward Tobias Rieder and defenseman Alexander Yelesin from the American Hockey League’s Stockton Heat.

For Tuesday’s game against the Colorado Avalanche, the Flames dressed the only 20 healthy bodies they had around: two goalies, six defensemen and 12 forwards. They were without Juuso Valimaki (LTIR), Austin Czarnik (LTIR), TJ Brodie (active roster), Travis Hamonic (active roster) and Bennett (active roster). That gave them literally zero wiggle room in case of accident, injury or illness. Headed out for a four game road trip – one that will begin without Brodie, Hamonic or Bennett – this was basically their only available move to open up a roster spot to bring up a healthy extra player while fitting under the cap.

Bennett was injured in Saturday’s game against Arizona, so his tenure on the LTIR must last 10 games and 24 days retroactive to that date. (He’s eligible to return on Dec. 10.) There’s no retroactive cap benefit, though. The Flames’ cap ceiling is now bumped up by the combined values of Valimaki, Czarnik and Bennett’s contracts, or roughly $4.694 million. Adding Rieder and Yelesin pushes them roughly $3.103 million into their LTIR relief. If somebody else gets hurt, they can just throw them onto “regular” IR because they won’t need to open up additional cap space.

We’re working to confirm what happened to open up the roster spot for Yelesin’s recall. We’re thinking Brodie has been placed on IR retroactive to his fainting episode.