Flames Burned by Injury Bug

  The Calgary Flames were dealt another blow in Tuesday nights’ pre-season game against the Phoenix Coyotes as top-line center Olli Jokinen left the ice with an apparent back injury. Flames’ head coach Brent Sutter does not believe it is a long term injury, thankfully, as Jokinen’s current status is day-to-day.

  The minor injury wouldn’t be so bad if he weren’t the fourth center to sustain injury ahead of the 2011 season which starts next week.

  Centers’ Daymond Langkow, Matt Stajan, and Ryan Stone will be out indefinitely with respective injuries, and after Olli Jokinen’s exit from the ice Tuesday night, the Calgary Flames really can’t afford to drop another player down the middle.

  Langkow was hospitalized, and then later cleared, after sustaining a slap shot blow to the back of the neck from defenseman and teammate Ian White while battling Minnesota’s Greg Zanon in front of the net in late March.

  The veteran center has missed training camp, and all of the pre-season thus far as he is skating on his own avoiding contact and trying to shorten the already lengthy recovery time.

"It's tough. This is the first time I haven't been able to start training camp. It's a different feeling but it's one of those things where you have to be patient and work at it. Hopefully it comes sooner than later." Langkow said.

  His absence is significant for the Flames. He was third on the team in scoring with 14 goals and 37 points, third in average time on ice, and first in total faceoffs taken with a win percentage of 43.5.

  On September 21st Matt Stajan suffered a shoulder injury in a pre-season game against the Vancouver Canucks. He, like Langkow, is a second line caliber center that Calgary relies on heavily to put up points.

"It's frustrating. You work hard all summer and just an innocent hit that caught me the wrong way separated my shoulder," Stajan told reporters after the game. "I'm just going to work hard to get it back to where it needs to be."

  The 26 year-old comes off of a career year in which he posted 19 goals and 57 points split between the Flames and the team he was traded from, the Toronto Maple Leafs, last season in 82 games. Stajan signed a four-year contract extension is March with the Flames and is expected to be a key piece to the Flames organization for a long time.

  Ryan Stone, who signed a one-year deal with the Flames in July, is also out indefinitely with a continued knee injury he sustained last year. Stone’s knee injury cost him a lot of time during his 2009-10 campaign with the Oilers as he only appeared in 27 games and posted 6 assists. Stone’s missed opportunity in training camp and the pre-season is devastating for the 25 year-old as his already uphill climb to make the team has gotten even steeper.

"We'd like to have Olli back. We'd like to have all three back for sure," captain Jarome Iginla said. "That's definitely a lot of talent to be out.”

"There's three very good centers that aren't practicing today, but I don't think Olli is going to be long and Staje I think is feeling better and Lanks is feeling better too."

  As it always works out, the absence of these four centers will make way for the Calgary Flames’ top prospect, Mikael Backlund, to get a large increase in ice time and a good look from the coaching and management staff.

  In the end, should all of these aforementioned fallen soldiers be back in a decent amount of time, the negatives can be turned into positives as the Flames will be depending on the likes of Backlund and other depth players to perform this coming season after finishing dead last in goals scored with a lowly 204 last season, and missing the playoffs.

“You don’t ever like seeing injuries but they do happen and it’s part of the game,” said Sutter. “You have to diversify and go with what’s there. It’s always nice to have centre-ice men (Backlund) that you can move up who can play on your first line, play on your third line or play on your fourth line because they are talented and skilled enough to do so. Mikael will get that opportunity now to play with Rene Bourque and see how it goes.”

- Kendall Grubbs