Flames had a few options after David Jones went down.
1) Keep the 4th line the same, and insert Horak/Reinhart/Knight/Hanowski into the 2nd.
2) Reward Bouma for his strong play, and insert another 'banger' into the 4th line
Though the Flames have upgraded their size this season, they still rank in the bottom 10. Blair Jones plays a decent north/south game, plays a more physical brand of hockey, and can be a good pest. I would have been in favor of promoting one of the guys in option 1, but there is another angle to the Blair Jones recall that I haven't seen mentioned yet.
Last season, Blair Jones was cast out of the Flames. Nobody knew 100% what it was exactly about, but a lot of people have speculated that Blair just didn't compete hard enough and wasn't fulfilling his role of being a more hard-nosed player.
This training camp he came in and competed hard, and looked like what the Flames wanted him to be. You have to reward a player that brought his game up to the point where they wanted him to be at.
At any rate, I don't expect him to dress for much anyways. Bouma fits well on that line with Backlund and Hudler- he has no problem crashing the net and getting those dirty goals. Compliments those two really well, I would say. He has also shown a really nice touch around the net.
Jackman will most likely play the bulk of the games until David Jones returns. He was simply terrible throughout most of last season, but he had a very, very pleasant preseason. He definitely deserves a bit of time, and he may actually play himself into a trade (though the return will not be significant - but it is always a good idea to gain as many assets as possible in a rebuild). I was hoping to see a Jackman - Bouma - McGrattan line at some point - especially against Edmonton, but the only way Colborne is going to get better is to play.
David Jones - I really didn't like this acquisition at all. I thought he was overpaid, and one of the guys in the league that is regressing horribly. However, he has been nothing short of a really great contributor out there, and fits in very, very well into the Flames aggressive forechecking system. Call me a delighted hypocrite.
O'Brien, on the other hand, I hated from that trade. Sarich would have been a better option right now - plays much more aggressively than O'Brien, and is much more competent defensively. I haven't seen an edge to O'Brien yet, and this is the biggest reason why the Flames acquired him. With that being said, I hope Breen goes down and realizes that he needs to go balls-out in his conditioning stint, and shows the Flames he should replace one of O'Brien or Butler. He plays with an edge out there, is simply huge, and is more than just competent at the AHL level right now - hopefully that translates very well to the NHL level.
Great to see Bouma rewarded and now playing with some skill guys. I really think he can compliment finesse guys really well, and I do see him right now as 'Prust-lite'. He is still young and is still developing, and it is really just awesome to see a guy that works this hard, and has so many intangibles to his game and leadership abilities getting rewarded in the system. It was great to see Ference make a call-out to Iginla and Regehr when he won the cup, but Lucic did the same thing with Bouma. Hope he scores another 5 goals on his next 5 shots
