Calgary Flames Daily: Mike Smith injured, Jon Gillies recalled

The Calgary Flames will start their road-trip this evening at the new Little Caesars arena, where they’ll face the Detroit Red Wings for the second time this season. More Flames news here.

After coming off a season-long seven-game homestand, the Calgary Flames will now begin a tie for a season-long six-game road trip, starting in Michigan tonight. They’ll face the Detroit Red Wings for the second time this season. The first time went in the Flames favour with them winning 6-3. We also had a couple of firsts in that game.

Jaromir Jagr scored his first goal as a Flame. Mark Jankowski scored his first ever NHL goal (he has two more since), and Sam Bennett got his first point. In that game, Mike Smith managed to save 39 of 42 shots.

Unfortunately, the Flames won’t have Mike Smith in net tonight with a minor injury he suffered on Monday evening. Eddie Lack will get the start tonight after finishing the second two periods on Monday. And with Smith being day-to-day, Jon Gillies has been recalled from Stockton.

Related Story: Jaromir Jagr and Mark Jankowski score some firsts

Gillies and Jankowski go back. They played together in their college days and played together last season in Stockton. However, unfortunately, they had recently heard the news of a passing of one of their former teammates from College and they both attended the funeral yesterday.

Via Calgary Sun:

“Janko and I talked about that actually,” Gillies nodded after Wednesday’s morning skate. “It was nice for him to get rewarded. And then for me to get called up … (Brown) started his work pretty quickly, I guess. And I don’t mean that in the wrong way toward Smitty or anything. It was just kind of funny for us to draw the coincidence.“It’s funny how that worked, that’s the best way to put it. I just don’t mean that in any way toward Smitty. It was just kind of funny for Janko and I and our teammates, too, to look at how the pieces fell together.”

Mike Smith didn’t initially join the Flames on their road-trip, but he did show up later. This may mean a good sign for Flames fans that he may only miss a game or two, but again, this is just speculation. Let’s not get our hopes up.

After Smith left after the first period on Monday, Lack stopped 13 of 15 shots he faced in the two periods to help him get his first win in a Flame jersey. He hasn’t started a game since Oct. 25 when it was against the St. Louis Blues (the Flames played the Blues on Monday night too, ironically enough, where they won 7-4), where the Flames lost 5-2.

Let’s hope we’ll get some highlight reel saves by Gillies tonight like we saw in preseason:

Flames Tweet of the day

Hockey Tweet of the day

(Yes, we’re putting our own Tweet)

Some links surrounding the Flames

Rookie Jankowski sets it up for Calgary Flames (Gulf News Hockey).

Flames G Smith day-to-day, Gillies recalled (TSN).

Flames’ Mike Smith out vs. Red Wings with injury; Gillies recalled (Sportsnet).

Flames goalie Jon Gillies receives NHL call-up during emotional stretch (Calgary Sun).

Some links surrounding hockey and the NHL

Marc-Edouard Vlasic comments show the NHL concussion protocol is still lacking (FanSided).

Carey Price injury update: Timetable lengthened (FanSided).

Who has the best four U-24 players in the NHL? (TSN).

Vegas turns to 5th goalie in Oilers’ blowout of Golden Knights (CBC Sports).

Next: Somewhere out there, Jay Feaster is pleased

That’s all in today’s Flames Daily! The game will be on at 5:30pm MT.