Has Phillip Danault asked for a trade?
Marco D’Amico: Sources have indicated that Los Angeles Kings forward Phillip Danault has asked for a trade, and his side hopes something can get done before the holiday trade freeze (midnight of December 20th).
The Kings are not in a rush, and aren’t looking for a futures deal, they’d like a player-for-player deal.
The Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils, and Carolina Hurricanes are among the teams that have kicked tires.
Allan Walsh: (Danault’s agent) “You never bothered to check with me.”
NHL Rumors: Toronto Maple Leafs Looking for a Top-Four Defenseman and Top-Six Forward
The St. Louis Blues don’t have any untouchables, but GM Doug Armstrong isn’t giving anyone away
Lou Korac of The Hockey News: The St. Louis Blues aren’t going to make any trades for the sake of making a trade, and they aren’t going to give anyone away.
“Again, I don’t want to come across like … when you’re in this position, like Wayne Gretzky got traded,” Armstrong said. “There’s really no untouchables – not on the St. Louis Blues – there’s really few untouchables in the league … Sid (Crosby), Connor (McDavid), Nate (MacKinnon).
But there’s a lot of other guys that, when things aren’t going well, that list grows, I would say. Things aren’t going well, so the list couldn’t be where, ‘No, we could never ever consider that.’ What I want to make sure you guys know, we’re not selling $.50 cents on the dollar out of anger.”
The Blues have struggled this season and teams are calling. GM Doug Armstrong wouldn’t be doing his job if he weren’t listening.
“Yeah, like the NHL as we know it, we work on deadline and artificial deadlines,” Armstrong said. “We have an artificial deadline Dec. 19, the trade freeze. Again, I’m just using my own experiences, when you’re a high-functioning team, this gives you a reason to call a low-functioning team to set the table for when you’re actually going to do it.
NHL Rumors: New Jersey Devils, and the Buffalo Sabres
So yeah, teams are starting to kick tires and starting to ask where we’re at, and we’re saying, ‘We’re certainly not pleased with where we’re at. What are your ideas?’ If it made sense today, we would do it today, but a lot of it is, ‘Well, I’m not there yet, but keep me in the loop.’ That artificial deadline will go away on Dec. 19 and we’ll put the next artificial deadline, which will likely be a little bit before the Olympics, and then the real deadline will come in in March.”
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