Calgary Flames General Manager Darryl Sutter announced today the recall of defenseman Anders Eriksson from Quad City of the American Hockey League. In 64 games this season, the veteran blue-liner recorded 49 points. The native of Sweden has played 552 NHL games and was a member of Detroit’s 1998 Stanley Cup championship team.

>> team release

The Flames blueline has really had the tar kicked out of it lately. There'd been some speculation that another Western Conference team may have put a claim in on Eriksson (who came through waivers) in order to prevent Calgary from using him, but perhaps they concluded he'd do more damage playing for the opposition.

(Heh.)

Erik Duhatschek has the defence pairings for tomorrow's series opener in Calgary as so:

Dion Phaneuf-Jordan Leopold
Adrian Aucoin-Adam Pardy
Jim Vandermeer-Anders Eriksson

And we've heard rumours recently that Phaneuf, shown above in pain, is also hurting.

The Blackhawks may be inexperienced as a playoff team, but there's no question this is a strong club. Calgary's going to have an awful tough time shutting down their high-flying snipers minus both Robyn Regehr and Cory Sarich.