Tyler Wotherspoon was supposed to play against the Arizona Coyotes. It would have been his ninth game of this NHL season, all games coming over the past month due to the Flames being short on defencemen.
But something suddenly changed: there was finally a ruling on Dennis Wideman's case, and his 20-game suspension was shifted to 10. This meant nothing for the previous nine games he missed out on, but it did for the deciding 10th: Wideman was officially reinstated, and the Flames were up to seven defencemen.
Seven defencemen doesn't fly when one of them is up on emergency recall.