Kevin Bahl out for season as Flames lose top defenceman

He never even made it to puck drop. Bahl went down while warming up on Friday, and his coach didn't hold back when he talked about what the Flames just lost.

Huska is calling him the best player on the team, and that's not a coach being nice to an injured guy. Bahl is 26 and was averaging 21:56 of ice time, more than any other Flames skater. He was the guy taking the tough matchups and the defensive-zone starts. Huska also called it a freak thing, and he's right: an Achilles rupture in warmups is about as cruel as it gets. Calgary went on to lose 5-3 to Anaheim that night, put Bahl on injured reserve Sunday and called up Brayden Pachal from AHL Calgary. Bahl needs surgery, and the team says he's done for the season.

It also wrecks a bounce-back. Calgary opened the season looking dead in the water and had finally started stacking points, and Bahl's minutes were a big reason why.

That's the scary part. A team that dug itself out of a 1-6 hole doesn't have much room for error, and now everybody else on the blue line moves up a spot. Guys who were fine in sheltered minutes now have to soak up the top-pairing load every night, and the team still has most of a season to play.

Don't expect Craig Conroy to panic and trade for a rental to plug the hole, either. According to Dreger, the Flames GM is only interested in certain kinds of fixes.

Darren Dreger

@DarrenDreger

Brutal injury that will hurt the Flames. If there’s a young Dman available, I expect Conroy might consider that, or a defenceman on a short term contract, but they’re not interested in simply adding via trade to fill the void.

Calgary Flames

@NHLFlames

Defenceman Kevin Bahl will be placed on the Injured Reserve and will require season-ending surgery for a ruptured Achilles tendon. #Flames | @MFradiology t.co/D8d5ehhNSg

That fits where Calgary is right now. They're not going to burn futures to save 1 season. A young defenceman who could stick around, or a cheap short-term deal, is the move that makes sense, and Bahl is still under contract after this year. He's in year 2 of a 6-year deal that pays him $5.35 million a season, so the Flames are planning around him being back. The first test without him is tonight against Philadelphia, with Devin Cooley in net against former Flame Dan Vladar. After that we find out whether this 6-3-1 run was real or whether Bahl was holding it together on his own.