There are eleven games on the docket today, including action for each of the league’s top eight teams and a match-up with major wild card implications in Blues-Kings. As teams continue to push toward the playoffs and jockey for position, here are the roster transactions being made before a busy day:
- Last night, the Colorado Avalanche recalled defenseman David Warsofsky from the AHL’s San Antonio Rampage. The 27-year-old journeyman rearguard is in his fifth NHL season, but has seen less and less of the NHL ice as the years have gone on. Thus far in 2017-18, Warsofsky has suited up for just six games for the Avs and hasn’t done much to prove he deserves more, with zero points to his credit, zero hits, and just two shot attempts per game. Currently the eighth defenseman in Denver, don’t expect Warsofsky to be the spark that ignites a playoff-clinching stretch run for Colorado.
- Ahead of their Original Six matinee match-ups today and tomorrow versus the Boston Bruins, the Chicago Blackhawks added some grit to their lineup in the form of John Hayden. The team announced this morning that they had called up Hayden from AHL Rockford and he will play this afternoon in Boston. The move was an emergency recall, with Vinnie Hinostroza dealing with family issues, but also a timely addition for Chicago. With Tommy Wingels gone, ironically to the Bruins, the ’Hawks could use a degree of toughness, which the 6’3″, 220-lb Hayden certainly brings. The Yale product has 11 points in 39 games with Chicago this year, as well as 103 hits and 43 penalty minutes.
- Another Central Division moves comes from the Winnipeg Jets, who have brought back Tucker Poolman. It was a brief demotion for the young defenseman, who has spent much of the season as an extra man for the Jets. Poolman, playing in his first pro season out of the University of North Dakota, has played in 15 games with Winnipeg, recording just one point, and 17 games with the AHL’s Manitoba Moose crammed into several short trips, where he has posted 10 points.
- The St. Louis Blues announced they have recalled journeyman defenseman Chris Butler from the San Antonio Rampage of the AHL today under emergency conditions. Butler has been up and down several times this season, but has only appeared in two games for the Blues. While there is no official word on who is out, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Tom Timmerman writes that defenseman Robert Bortuzzo did not practice Friday.