Dec. 12: As expected, the Flames announced today that Duehr and Pelletier are back up with the team. Their demotion was indeed to bank cap space and delay their temporary waiver exemptions.
Dec. 11: Following their victory over Nashville on Tuesday, the Flames have made a pair of roster moves. The team announced (Twitter link) that they’ve assigned forwards Jakob Pelletier and Walker Duehr to AHL Calgary. Both players were recalled earlier this month.
Pelletier somewhat surprisingly landed on waivers at the end of the preseason and the 2019 first-round pick (26th overall) passed through unclaimed. He got off to a strong start with the Wranglers, notching three goals and 16 assists in 20 games, landing him the recall early last week. The 23-year-old did well in limited action with the Flames, picking up a goal and an assist in four games despite logging barely eight minutes a night of action.
As for Duehr, he also passed through waivers without being claimed in early October despite playing in 40 games with the big club last season. He also started strong in the minors, tallying 11 goals and eight assists in his first 20 outings. Duehr picked up an assist in his four outings with the Flames while averaging a little over ten minutes of ice time per contest.
With the demotions, Calgary has a pair of open roster spots. Notably, they only have 11 forwards on the active roster including Ryan Lomberg who has missed the last couple of games so it wouldn’t be surprising if a forward is recalled on Thursday. It could be one of these two (in which case the assignment is simply to delay the waiver clock by a day) or they could elect to try a different forward on the fourth line now.
They both get either 30 days or 10 games with the big club before they need to go through waivers, so it most likely is just a cap savings. Just a paper trail.
I think we should start establishing a process with the league by which we are not informed of those moves. It would be like an administrative move, and we would not have to be informed of what the secretary has done, even in an NHL club.