Flames trade Blake Coleman and Olli Maatta to Wild for veteran defenseman

UPDATE: Nooooow it makes more sense... The full deal has been revealed to be Coleman and Maatta for Middleton and three draft picks.

Full details:

Initially there were no picks reported in the deal. With the addition of a 2nd, 3rd and 4th round pick, this trade makes a lot more sense for Calgary.

Read below for our earlier report on this trade, published as events occurred.

This just in from NHL insider Darren Dreger, the Calgary Flames have acquired Wainwright, AB native Jake Middleton from the Minnesota Wild in exchange for Blake Coleman and Olli Maatta.

From Dreger:

To me, this looks a lot like an old school hockey trade. No salary retention, no future considerations, just two teams trying to plug holes in their lineup.

On the surface this looks like a big win for the Wild and GM Bill Guerin. He picks up a quality middle-six forward in Coleman and gets some depth on the blue line in Maatta.

Coleman put up 20 goals for the Flames this past season and is just two seasons removed from a 30 goal campaign. He should help the Wild shoulder the loss of veteran forward Mats Zuccarello who departed as a free agent on a one year deal with the Los Angeles Kings.

Maatta now gets a fresh start... again. The Wild are the Finnish defender's 7th NHL team and at this point in his career he can only really be relied upon to provide some blue line depth.

The Flames get a rugged, stay at home defenseman in Middleton who is locked up for two more years at a reasonable $4.35 million cap hit. You have to imagine that Flames GM Craig Conroy is looking at injecting some more youth in his forward ranks as a result of this move... otherwise it's a little perplexing. Sure, Middleton is a serviceable player, but Coleman and Maatta are seemingly much more valuable commodities.

Thoughts, Flames fans?

Wild fans: Are you satisfied with Guerin's work this offseason so far?