"He'll be a game player tomorrow," head coach Glen Gulutzan told reporters following his team's practice on Monday afternoon. "We've passed most of the checkmarks that the docs needed us to go through as far as the healing of the jaw and stuff so you can expect Fro in tomorrow."
Frolik has missed the last 12 games with a broken jaw after being struck by a shot from Sharks defenceman Brent Burns in a 3-2 shootout loss to San Jose back on Dec. 28.
"I'm definitely excited, it's never fun for a player to be injured," said Frolik. "It's obviously never easy to [spend] a month away from the game but I think I had a few good practices. [I'll] just try to keep it simple at the start, I think, keep it short shifts; keep it short and keep it simple and go out there and try to bring a little bit more energy and hopefully it's going to be good."
Prior to his injury, Frolik had seven goals and eight assists in 37 games this season. The 29-year-old right winger has been practicing with the team for the past week wearing a lower face guard on his helmet.
"Just the concern was to make sure everything is healed up and everything is pretty solid," said Frolik. "I did a few battles and stuff and it looks pretty good. With the protection I have on the helmet it helps, too. It looks a little weird but I probably will wear it for a couple weeks and hopefully it will save me from those high sticks and pucks again and should be good."
Frolik's return gives the Flames a boost as they look to get back in the win column against one of the league's top teams after four consecutive non-regulation losses.
Gulutzan said that the coaching staff will monitor Frolik's minutes but intend to slot him back in with Matthew Tkachuk and Mikael Backlund.
"He gets pucks - he gets and holds and keeps pucks and it's invaluable," said Gulutzan. "I think he's one of the best in the league at it and when we have it they don't so he can do that. He adds to our penalty kill, he adds to the speed of our team and he just gets pucks to people and keeps them so that's why he's hard to play against."
