Rory Kerins is going back to the AHL.
On Monday morning, the Calgary Flames announced that the 23-year-old had been reassigned to the Calgary Wranglers, ending a callup that lasted two games.
The move come despite Sam Honzek being listed as out week-to-week with an upper-body injury he suffered against the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday night. Instead of keeping Kerins, the Flames called up 29-year-old veteran Dryden Hunt and 26-year-old centre Sam Morton, who made his NHL debut in the final game of the regular season this spring.
The move likely won’t go down particularly well with fans who are desperate to see the Flames accept that they’re in last place in the NHL and give longer looks to younger players.
With that said, there’s an argument for calling up both Morton and Hunt.
Morton, who signed with the Flames in 2024 after completing his college career at Minnesota State, has scored four times and added eight assists in the AHL so far this season. He should be able to slot in to the Flames’ fourth-line centre role, which would allow the team to move Connor Zary back to his natural position on the wing.
Hunt, meanwhile, has 235 games on his NHL resume and has proven himself to be a reliable depth forward. He’s also leading the Wranglers in points so far this season, with five goals and 11 assists in 15 games.
That’s still behind Kerins’ pace in the AHL, though. Prior to his callup late last week from the Flames, he was producing at a better-than-point-per-game pace, with five goals and nine assists in 13 games.
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“I thought Rory was fine, I liked his prior game better,” Flames head coach Ryan Huska said after Saturday night’s loss to the Jets. “Winnipeg’s got a challenging team to play against because there’s a lot of bigger, heavier players on that team. For a young guy, it’s a pretty good indicator of the areas you have to work on when you play a team like that.
“For him, he’s got to keep working on his overall speed, he’s got to work on being able to handle some bigger, heavier, stronger defencemen who can keep him away from the front of the net. He’s a very smart player and he’s going to learn and he’s going to take a lot of different things from a game like tonight.”