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   I was in the Philadelphia hotel lobby the evening Ollie Jokinen joined the Flames last March.

   …And late Monday night I was at the backdoor of the Saddledome as the centreman from Finland left the Flames.

   He started with a flourish and ended with the whimper in his 11 months with the Flames.

   Lending further evidence, that just like you can’t judge a book by its cover, you can’t judge a trade on its first game.

   Jokinen had 2 goals in his Flames debut on March 5 in Philly — a 5-1 win.  In his last game, also against he Flyers, Jokinen was a -1 in just better of 15 minutes of ice time in a 3-0 loss to the Flyers.  Jokinen played knowing all the while he likely to be traded by evenings end.

   The very public trade rumbles Sunday night and all day Monday that Jokinen and Brandon Prust would go to the NY Rangers in exchange for Ales Kotalik and Chris Higgins became official an hour after the game. 

   In his exit media availability, Jokinen had no answer as to why things didn’t good better for him with the Flames and why he and captain Jarome Iginla didn’t have the chemistry anticipated when the deal with Phoenix was made.

  Right now the Flames, themselves, have little chemistry as a group.  With the 4 new players from Toronto debuting, the Flames managed just 18 shots on goal as Ray Emery notched the shutout. The 4, not surprisingly, didn’t have the type of start Jokinen had last March. Maybe, that’s a good thing.

   It takes time for players to blend together and now the Flames have 2 more forwards to initiate. Kotalik and Higgins are slated to make their debuts on Wednesday at home against Carolina.

   Like Jokinen a year ago, Kotalik and Higgins, not only have new teammates to adjust to but the Flames need them to get back to performances they had early in their careers.

   Kotalik, now with his 4th team in less than a year, has had four seasons of 20 goals including the last 2 campaigns but had stuggled with the Rangers after signing a 3-year contract at 3M per during the summer.  The 31-year-old was benched for 8 of the last 9 games he was eligible to play for the Rangers.

   Higgins, who is 26 and on the final year of his contract, put together seasons of 23, 22 and 27 goals in his last 3 campaigns in Montreal before going to the Rangers in the Scott Gomez transaction in the summer of 2008.

   Bringing 6 news players into the fold from trades the first week of February-or-later is a first for the Flames in their 30 years in Calgary.  It tells you how much GM Darryl Sutter felt his club has under-achieved to this point of the season.

   They need to make it the opposite performance now to save the season.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 1:53 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.