The Flames will be without winger Kris Versteeg for the foreseeable future. The team announced that he will undergo hip surgery on Monday with no definitive timetable for his return per GM Brad Treliving. He will be listed as month-to-month for the time being.
This is a notable blow to a Calgary attack that has been somewhat limited this season beyond the contributions of top liners Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan. In particular, Versteeg was a useful piece on their power play with five of his eight points (in 22 games) coming with the man advantage. Last season, he had a career-high eight goals on the power play.
The 31-year-old was a success story in 2016, turning a PTO deal (with Edmonton) into a one-year contract and then earned himself a considerable raise for 2017-18, going from $950K to $1.75MM in salary (with a 10-team no-trade clause) on the heels of a 37-point season.
The Flames already have 14 healthy forwards on their roster excluding Versteeg so it’s unlikely that any further roster moves are required. They currently sit with a little over $3.4MM in cap space per CapFriendly and will be able to transfer the veteran winger to long-term injured reserve to open more room if they need to free up more space.
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