High Ankle Sprain for Stempniak

The Calgary Flames updated the status of injured forward Lee Stempniak on Thursday afternoon and the results of all the tests did not bring good news. Stempniak is now expected to be out of the Flames line-up for upwards of six weeks, thanks to a high ankle sprain, in the game against the Red Wings on Tuesday night.  This comes as a fairly significant blow, as Stempniak has been one of the more consistent players in the Calgary line-up.

On the plus side, this doesn't necessarily end Stempniak's season, with still nine weeks of action left to go in the year, he should be back.  Now, whether or not the Flames are still alive in the playoff race, that remains to be seen.

Stempniak has been one of the more reliable Flames in Calgary this year, but the bar has been set fairly low.  He goes into Thursday night's action, the Flames are off on Thursday, in 5th in team scoring with 12 goals and 12 assists in 51 games this season, which is good enough for 197th overall in pool scoring.  These are not spectacular numbers by any stretch, but when he has been able to put points up on the board, they have been pretty big for the team.

Well, this injury should get the attention of Munden G., who passed on his first waiver draft pick earlier in the week, he'll be making a move to get some points out of this position, at the very least.  Munden picked Stempniak with the 211th pick in the draft and up until this point in time, he was getting worthy returns out of the forward, working out to be a minor bargain.  Unfortunately, he'll be missing out on the back end of the season, which will certainly hurt that designation.

Munden goes into Thursday's action in 17th place, 37 points out of the top 10.