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Canucks send Kassian to AHL for conditioning; recall Jensen, Sweatt

St Louis Blues v Vancouver Canucks

VANCOUVER, CANADA - MARCH 19: Chris Stewart #25 of the St. Louis Blues and Zack Kassian #9 of the Vancouver Canucks fight during the first period in NHL action on March 19, 2013 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images)

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After being run out of the building by Edmonton last night, the Canucks are making some moves.

Vancouver is sending Zack Kassian to AHL Chicago on a conditioning assignment and calling up forwards Nicklas Jensen and Bill Sweatt. Brad Ziemer of the Vancouver Sun reports what the team’s motivation is for sending Kassian down.

“He needs to play,” Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault said before the team left Edmonton for San Jose late Sunday morning.

“We want him to get a little bit more ice time. He has been out for a little bit more than two weeks, on and off, and we felt for now he needed to play and we are going to send him down there.”

Kassian hasn’t played since March 19 against St. Louis, a game where he saw just 2:48 of ice time before leaving with a back injury. With Vancouver in a battle with Minnesota atop the Northwest Division, letting Kassian work out the kinks in a playoff battle didn’t seem wise.

All that aside, Kassian’s struggles this season and seeing Cody Hodgson having a solid season for Buffalo while the Canucks having holes to fill at center has some fans looking back on that trade last season with some grumbles.