The Vancouver Canucks announced earlier this morning that they’d recalled forward Brendan Gaunce from the Utica Comets and that he would join the team in Pittsburgh.

Vancouver reassigned Gaunce to the Comets on February 6th, where he’s been near a point-per-game player since.

He appeared in four games for Utica, where he posted two goals and one assist. He didn’t wait long to make his mark on the scoreboard, lighting the lamp less than two minutes into his first AHL game of the season:

Gaunce has appeared in 47 contests for the Canucks this season – he has zero goals and five assists.

The recall was necessitated by Bo Horvat suffering a bone bruise from blocking a shot in Sunday’s game against Buffalo. He is listed as day to day.

The Canucks previously assigned Gaunce to Utica, as they reached the 23 man roster limit and since Gaunce was the only non-waiver eligible forward, his assignment was the easy solution to the situation. Most expected that it just required another injury, and Gaunce would make his way back up to the Canucks. That injury happened to Sven Baertschi the following night, and he was placed on IR.

Gaunce is expected to draw into the lineup for the Canucks tonight, but at this time there is no information on how the lines will shake out.