New look, same great taste; Flames lose

Ahh yes, the poor offense-starved Flames finally made a big splash in the NHL Sunday acquiring four new players from a difference conference. Surely these were the answers to the woes that have been so well documented since oh lets say 2002. Well if you watched the first ~15 minutes of the first period, it seemed like everything was going just swimmingly. The new guys looked pretty good and the offense in general had big-time pressure in the Flyers zone. Then, everything came down to earth.


The Flames have been shut-out three times in the last three weeks. But luckily, there is (more?) hope for the future: the Calgary Flames have acquired Ales Kotalik and Chris Higgins from the New York Rangers for Olli Jokinen and Brandon Prust.

<3

I've gone on the record before as saying that I am not an NHL General Manager and I am likely unqualified to be one. But if I was looking to improve my team's offense, there would be a couple things I would consider before trading with other teams. Does it really make sense that we are going to gain offense from one team that is notorious for being unable to score in the East (NYR), and from another team that is last in the conference (TOR)? Unless this is part of another deal to come, then I am very confused.

Sam Gratton probably put it best: Top-6 forwards are not Pokemon, and Darryl Sutter is not Ash Ketchum.

Darryl Sutter's first single off his debut album, "Gotta Catch 'em All"

All I know about Chris Higgins is that he was ok when he played for Montreal but sucked it up pretty good in New York. Ales Kotalik on the other hand has a reputation for being one of the laziest players in the league, which just infuriates/confuses me even further. Furthermore, he has a no-movement clause, and the reason why this trade was supposedly held up was because Calgary was one of three teams on his list that he did not want to be moved to. So the situation is that there is a player who fans don't want...coming to play in a city he doesn't want to.

We'll say Tony Randall is the Flames organization and Jack Klugman is Ales Kotalik

They say hope sells, but I'm wondering if anybody is buying.