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Habs rotate backups by recalling MacDonald, demoting Tokarski

Dusitn Tokarski

Montreal Canadiens goaltender Dustin Tokarski lies in his crease after being scored on by Buffalo Sabres’ Brian Flynn during a shootout at an NHL hockey game in Montreal, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2014. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Graham Hughes)

AP

The Montreal Canadiens made some AHL recalls and demotions on Friday, essentially trading backups and depth forwards.

Dustin Tokarski goes down to the AHL to give journeyman No. 2 Joey MacDonald a chance to sit behind Carey Price while Sven Andrighetto’s demotion ends up short-lived, as he replaces Eric Tangradi in the Montreal mix.

Tokarski (pictured) is 3-2-1 with a .914 save percentage so far in 2014-15. The 25-year-old hasn’t seen action since late November, so the trust might not be there, even if he previously gained enough traction to shuffle Peter Budaj out of town earlier this season.

(There’s a chance that this backup rotation might not last all that long, however, as the Habs noted that Tokarski was being sent down for conditioning reasons. We’ll see.)

MacDonald, 34, has 133 career regular season games stretched since 2006-07. He has a Budaj-ike .902 save percentage for his career.

Follow James O’Brien @cyclelikesedins