With Michael Stone’s season appearing to be over, the Arizona Coyotes recalled 27-year-old defender Alex Grant from their AHL affiliate Springfield Falcons to serve as the team’s seventh defenseman for tonight’s matchup against Calgary.
The hard hits continue to come for the Arizona Coyotes. Just seven games from the end of the season, it appears Michael Stone’s season is over.
The only question now is how much time he’ll be spending on the shelf, with Craig Morgan tweeting out that the Yotes are still waiting for imaging on Stone’s knee to be completed in order to get a clearer picture.
Stone was injured after getting tangled up and going down awkwardly during the third period in the Coyotes testy 2-1 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday night.
He scored the game-winning goal in the second period of the contest. He was also awarded the player of the game belt by his teammates in absentia after the game.
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With Stone on the shelf, the Coyotes now have a slot for an extra defenseman to be called up and it looks like 27-year-old Canadian defenseman Alex Grant is getting the nod.
Here is the Arizona Coyotes press release on Grant’s call-up:
"Arizona Coyotes General Manager Don Maloney announced today that the Coyotes have recalled defenseman Alex Grant from the Springfield Falcons, the club’s American Hockey League affiliate (AHL). The 27-year-old Grant has recorded 11-29-40 in 66 games with Springfield this season. The Antigonish, Nova Scotia native has scored two goals in two career NHL games with the Anaheim Ducks during the 2013-14 season. Grant was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the fourth round (118th overall) in the 2007 Entry Draft."
Clearly general manager Don Maloney and head coach Dave Tippett were looking for a steady hand as the extra defenseman more than they were considering giving a call-up a serious shot at cracking the lineup.
That’s the only reason I can imagine they called up a career AHL defender over a prospect whom we still assume has some upside in Philip Samuelsson.
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I’m sure Alex Grant is a good player for what he is, but personally I would have preferred to see Samuelsson get another shot at this point in the season. The boys are playing for pride only, so why not give the kid a seven game look and be certain of what you’ve got?
That seems like a better course of action for the Arizona Coyotes, but perhaps there is more to the story than we know.