Calgary Flames place forward Ales Kotalik on injured reserve
Ales Kotalik’s season debut has been put on hold for a while, as the forward has been sidelined with a knee injury. The Calgary Flames placed Kotalik on the long-term injured reserve while
he is recovering.
It's an early blow to the Flames, who already started off their season with a whimper on Thursday by falling 4-0 to the Edmonton Oilers.
The native of Jindrichuv Hradec, Czech Republic was acquired by the Flames last season along with Chris Higgins in a multi-player trade that sent Olli Jokinen and Brandon Prust to the
New York Rangers.
The Flames were Kotalik’s fourth National Hockey League team. Originally drafted by the Buffalo Sabres at the 1998 NHL draft (164th overall), Kotalik would spend the next seven seasons
in Buffalo before being shipped off to the Edmonton Oilers midway through the 2008-09 season in exchange for the Oilers’ second-round selection at the 2009 NHL draft. Kotalik played in 19 games for the Oilers, and became an unrestricted free agent at the end
of the season.
Kotalik was eventually signed by the New York Rangers on 9 July 2009, and was expected to help the team offensively. However, the 31-year-old Kotalik did not get his name on the score
sheet as often of the Rangers’ management had hoped, and often found himself as a healthy scratch due to his lack of production. He was later traded to Calgary on 1 February 2010, where he would remain for the final 26 games of the 2009-10 season. He scored
27 points (11 goals, 16 asissts) that season, which was one of the most disappointing results of his career to date.
Calgary placed Kotalik on waivers at the end of the season, and he would later clear waivers. However, he returned to the team and played in many of the Flames’ pre-season games. The right-winger
showed a lot of promise in the exhibition games, and he quickly regained the respect of the coaching staff. But Kotalik’s strong start came to an abrupt end when he suffered the knee injury.
Kotalik has played in 516 games during his NHL career, in which he has scored 132 goals and 146 assists for a total of 278 points.
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