According to TSN. Details to follow. We'll sort through them as they come.
Rumor is this is precursor to another, even bigger trade.
UPDATE - Dreger says the trade is now Jokinen and Prust for Higgins and Kotalik. We'll wait for confirmation before getting into the guts of the thing.
This seems like a done deal, so let's look at the pieces. We all know Jokinen and Prust around here, so here's what we're getting:
Ugly stats line. Especially ugly considering his $3M contract. Kotalik is a guy who has teased GM's for years given his size, hands and cannon of shot. Truth is, he's stunk at ES for a long time. He's useful on the PP and in the shoot-out and that's about it. He has to be heavily sheltered in order to be effective.
The slight positive is: he's had some dreadful luck this year, so those counting numbers aren't quite indicative. A PDO of 93.8 is about as bad as it gets for an NHLer.
That said, Kotalik is a por bet to be a value player considering his price and history and he's signed for another couple of years. He's a...curious player for Sutter to trade for to say the least.
Once upon a time, Chris Higgins was a tough minute option for the Montreal Canadiens. He's also scored more than 20+ goals a couple of times in his career.
Unfortunately, he seemed to step into an elevator shaft at some point in the near past. He hasn't been that useful for the Rangers, who originally acquired him to be a top 6 player. One part of explanation may be the percentages: his PDO is just 97 and his personal SH% is 4.5 - which is about what you'd expect from an average defenseman. That said, he's in the red in terms of possession on the Rangers and is an injury threat besides.
Again, not a guy one would expect Sutter to look at. The real good news is: if Higgins sticks around, his contract ends this year.
Overall, it's great to get rid of Jokinen and bummer to lose Prust who was starting to look pretty useful. Higgins and Kotalik don't really improve the Flames and Kotlik's contract is a problem. Personally, I'd bet there's another shoe yet to drop.
UPDATE 2 - Darren Dreger now reports that the Flames haven't okay'd the trade for some reason. Deal not official yet.