Flames announce brutal injury news on veteran winger

The Flames got some bad news on the injury front on Saturday.  While they were hopeful that winger A.J. Greer avoided a fracture on his foot, that wasn’t the case as the team announced that he will miss the next eight weeks due to a foot fracture.

The 27-year-old is in his first year with Calgary after being claimed off waivers late in training camp from Boston.  Since then, Greer has been a regular on the fourth line for the Flames, playing in 47 of 48 games, picking up six goals and four assists while chipping in with 77 hits despite averaging less than nine minutes a night of ice time.

Notably, Calgary hasn’t brought anyone up from the AHL’s Wranglers despite Blake Coleman also being banged up.  Instead, Coleman will play through his hand injury per Sportsnet’s Eric Francis, giving them 12 available forwards against Chicago.

Winger Martin Pospisil took part in the morning skate, giving hope that he’d return but they’ll give him the extra rest instead.  The 24-year-old has held his own in his first taste of NHL action, collecting four goals and seven assists in 33 games.  He has been out a little more than a week due to his lower-body injury.

Once Pospisil is officially activated after the break, Calgary’s roster will be at 23 skaters although Greer can easily be shifted onto injured reserve.  Considering their tight cap situation, there’s a good chance that Greer will eventually land on LTIR, but with a cap hit of just $762.5K, the extra flexibility they’d gain from that would be quite limited but it would be enough to get a recall up from the Wranglers if needed.