The Calgary Flames have lost goalie prospect Jon Gillies for the season, the team announced on Thursday. Gillies will undergo hip surgery on Wednesday and is expected to miss four-to-six months, which will put him out for the rest of the season.
The former Providence College goaltender turned pro this season, playing the most games of the seven goalies who have gotten in net for the Stockton Heat. He has a team-best .920 save percentage.
The 21-year-old netminder was a 3rd round pick for the Flames in the 2012 NHL draft. In the season after he was drafted he was named both the Hockey East and NCAA New England rookie of the Year with a .931 save percentage through 35 games.
#Flames GM Brad Treliving announces hip surgery for goaltender Jon Gillies, who will be out 4-6 months.
— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) December 3, 2015
Flames GM Brad Trevliving elaborated on how Gillies wound up requiring surgery.
He had a little something going on in there for a little bit that he’s managed… You see it now with a lot of these guys, the style they play, the butterfly. He had a little something going on and then about three weeks ago he did something to it. He went down. It looked like a benign play; it looked like a routine stop.
We’ve been trying to give it some time to see if it cleared up and healed up and go the way of treatment. It got to the point where we don’t want to get into next year and have this problem again. The determination was to go get it fixed.
It’s another blow to the team’s goaltending depth. With no clear goaltender on the team that they want to be the number one next year, to lose 3/4 of a season of development for Gillies stings.
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