{"id":484918,"date":"2026-03-08T09:57:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T13:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=484918"},"modified":"2026-03-08T09:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T13:57:17","slug":"flames-whitecloud-suffers-apparent-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2026\/03\/08\/flames-whitecloud-suffers-apparent-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Calgary Flames Potentially Without Blueliner Despite Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Calgary Flames<\/a> could be without recently acquired<\/a> defenceman Zach Whitecloud<\/a> for some time. The Flames’ blueliner suffered an apparent injury as he went awkwardly into the boards after clipping skates with a Carolina Hurricanes<\/a> player. The injury occurred in the first period of Saturday night’s game. He fell headfirst into the boards and immediately went to the locker room. The Flames later sent a post on social media saying he would not return for the night. It’s unknown whether it was just precautionary.<\/p>\n

New Calgary Flames Addition Zach Whitecloud Injured<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

.@MFradiology<\/a> Injury Update: Zach Whitecloud<\/a> (upper body) will not return to the game. pic.twitter.com\/piRQ8FvYnq<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) March 8, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whitecloud has become one of the leaders on the backend with the absence of both Rasmus Andersson<\/a> and MacKenzie Weegar<\/a> by way of trades. Instantly becoming a top pairing guy alongside Kevin Bahl<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Implications on the Blueline for the Flames<\/h3>\n

If Whitecloud has to miss a few games, the Flames are likely to call up prospect Hunter Brzustewicz<\/a> at some point. The Flames would like to see what they have in their youngsters. Especially with the shift at the deadline to becoming a rebuilding team.<\/a> Brzustewicz is the most likely due to his time up with the big club earlier in the season before the Olympic break. In 18 games with the Flames, he has two points while playing a predominately stay-at-home role while he learns the NHL game.<\/p>\n

The Flames spent the majority of the game against the Hurricanes with five defencemen as Whitecloud did not return to the bench. It was announced midway through the third period that he would not return. The Flames ended up winning 5-4 over the Hurricanes in the end. However, the Flames ended up spreading the ice-time around the remaining blueliners. All five of them averaged around 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

The Flames are currently sitting second to last in the Pacific Division, ahead of the Vancouver Canucks. Calgary has a record of 25-30-7 after the win and continue their insane winning streak when scoring four or more goals to 51 straight games.<\/p>\n

Main photo by: Sergei Belski-Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Calgary Flames could be without recently acquired defenceman Zach Whitecloud for some time. The Flames’ blueliner suffered an apparent injury as he went awkwardly into the boards after clipping skates with a Carolina Hurricanes player. The injury occurred in the first period of Saturday night’s game. He fell headfirst into the boards and immediately […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5657,"featured_media":484929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,4547,6671,34,4548],"tags":[6038,7770,1576,3093],"class_list":["post-484918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flames","category-hockey","category-injuries","category-news","category-nhl","tag-calgary-flames-news","tag-hunter-brzustewicz","tag-injury","tag-zach-whitecloud"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484918"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":484931,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484918\/revisions\/484931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}