Vancouver Canucks defenceman Kevin Bieksa knows he’s far from a sure bet in British Columbia for the 2010-2011 season. ‘Nucks GM Mike Gillis has been receiving inquiries from a number of teams, including the Anaheim Ducks, the San Jose Sharks, the Los Angeles Kings, the Montreal Canadiens, and the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Bieksa has a year left on his $3.5 million deal in Vancouver and it doesn’t look like there’s much room for going to the negotiating table with Gillis. It’s clear that the GM feels that Bieksa is a player of value and it looks like he wants to test the market with Bieksa to see what he can get in return.

He won’t be giving away the defenceman for a song, that’s for sure, but it probably wouldn’t take much for the Canucks to move Bieksa at this point and time.

With the Canucks over the cap currently, they’ve got some shuffling to do before camp. The addition of an unexpectedly hefty salary for Jannik Hansen, won through arbitration, doesn’t help matters and furthers the notion that Bieksa could be on the move sooner than later. Mason Raymond, too, has an arbitration hearing set for Monday and could also be awarded a pretty decent sum.

It probably isn’t likely that Bieksa will just turn out to be a salary dump for Gillis, but lightening the load in Vancouver is assuredly on the agenda. It’s more a matter of reason, as the deal has to make sense fiscally but it also has to produce results. Moving a player like Bieksa isn’t an easy decision, as he has a tremendous upside and a lot of potential.

According to the Orange County Register, the Ducks are the team really charging hard for Bieksa. They’ve got a pretty decent core group of defencemen, sure, but adding a player like him to the mix would be ideal. With Lubomir Visnovsky, Toni Lydman, Sheldon Brookbank, Danny Syvret and Brett Festerling currently under contract in Anaheim, Bieksa could fit in well with a top pairing conceivably.

The Sharks are also still in the market for defencemen and Bieksa would be a nice fit for the team looking to replace Rob Blake. The Kings could use some backup for Drew Doughty and Jack Johnson and Bieksa would still fit well with a youth movement, so that’s also a possibility. The Habs seem like longshots to me.

In any event, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Bieksa suiting up for a California team in the near future. If that’s the case, Canucks fans will still see a fair deal of their former defender.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

After failing to lock up Niklas Hjalmarsson to an offer sheet, the San Jose Sharks find themselves still in the market for a defenceman to fill the void left behind by Rob Blake. The Sharks are short that one key blueliner, clearly, and GM Doug Wilson is said to be shopping around for a top-tier guy to sign.

There have been a number of potential targets for Wilson. The San Jose Mercury News reports that Wilson’s shown interest in Vancouver’s Kevin Bieksa, Toronto’s Tomas Kaberle, and Marc Staal of the New York Rangers.

The problem with Kaberle is that his price is probably too high for what Wilson would be willing to pay. Staal could be a possibility, as it’s thought that the RFA has fallen out of favour with management in New York. There’s nothing concrete on that situation, though, and it’s believed that Staal wants to remain a Ranger.

That leaves Bieksa. There is indeed some history between Wilson and Mike Gillis, too, so that could open some doors. Christian Ehrhoff headed to the ‘Nucks last year and the avenues could be wide open for a deal to be worked out to ship Bieksa over to San Jose. And with Vancouver boasting the acquisitions of Keith Ballard and Dan Hamhuis, it’s probable that the club would move a D-man.

Whether Wilson can package up something decent the other way for Bieksa is an issue, of course, as the rest of the Sharks seem pretty set to go. It’s possible that a guy like RFA Devin Setoguchi could be moved and it’s true that San Jose has over $6 million of cap space, so Wilson has a lot of wiggle room.

Bieksa, for his part, has told TSN’s Off the Record that he knows that he’s a candidate to be traded. With Gillis still top-loaded with defensive contracts in Vancouver, somebody has to be on the move.

So, like Kevin Bieksa, it’s possible to put two and two together. Whether that amounts to a deal for Wilson’s Sharks remains to be seen, but I think it’s fair to say that something’s in the water.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

With the Los Angeles Kings recently saying that they won’t be working out a deal for Ilya Kovalchuk, a new possibility for a talented forward looms on the horizon. That’s right, kids, I’m talking about the Flyers’ Simon Gagne.

Gagne has agreed to waive his no-trade clause with the club and, even with no deal imminent according to CSNPhilly.com, there are some possibilities to consider.

For starters, the ridiculous rumours about trades between the Flyers and Kings to make room for Kovalchuk have got to be put out to pasture once and for all. Message boards lit up after someone put words in TSN’s Dan Dreger’s mouth, announcing reportedly that the Kings were going to send Anze Kopitar, winger and captain Dustin Brown, solid defenseman Jack Johnson, and starting goaltender Jonathan Quick to the Flyers for Gagne and Jeff Carter to “make room” for Kovy.

Stop laughing.

Once Dreger was able to tweet his stunned surprise that someone would even assume such a ridiculous trade in the first place, things got down to brass tacks. What did emerge was that Gagne actually has waived his no-trade and that he probably won’t be back in Philly when the new season gets underway.

And the Kings do deserve to be thought of as in the mix, especially with the news that they won’t be able to give Kovalchuk what he wants. So Gagne becomes a nice fit in Los Angeles.

But with a year left on his contract, there’s plenty of time for a deal to be made if that’s to be in the cards. You have to think that the Flyers could really go either way here. On the one hand, Gagne’s concussion history and groin injuries don’t bode well and his cap hit of $5.25 million could certainly factor in to making him an attractive player to move.

On the other hand, besides Mike Richards, Simon Gagne could be considered the “face of the franchise” in Philadelphia and his loss would be a big one for fans. As one of the last remaining fixtures of the popular Lindros era, it’s tough to imagine the club without him.

Stranger things have happened, however, and anything’s possible in the wheeling and dealing of the NHL’s hot summer. The only certainty at this point is that Gagne’s waived his no-trade clause. Everything else is speculation, sure, but speculation can be a whole lot of fun.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

According to CSNPhilly.com, former San Jose Sharks goalie Evgeni Nabokov could be sporting a Flyers jersey soon. CSNPhilly.com is reporting that the Flyers have reached a verbal agreement for the signing rights to Nabokov, sending the Sharks a seventh round pick in the 2011 draft if they can sign the goaltender prior to July 1.

Nabokov is set to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.

According to TSN, Nabokov has told the Flyers that he would rather test the market first and head into free agency on July 1. It’s possible, too, that he’ll have more than his fair share of KHL options.

Sharks GM Doug Wilson wouldn’t confirm any deal to sign Nabokov, but he did tell CSNPhilly.com that there were a few issues around the negotiating process that could take some time to sort out.

Flyers GM Paul Holmgren was similarly quiet about the issue, stating only that Nabokov was a “good goalie” before adding that he thought the Russian would test free agency waters on July 1.

So even with the rumblings of the former Sharks goalie heading to Philly, it’s hard to nail down anything concrete. It seems that there is a conditional handshake deal and that the Flyers might be looking to sign him seriously, but the ultimate location of Nabokov’s 2010-2011 season is far from determined.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

Jason Spezza has been spending most of his Thursday dismissing reports that he’s asked for a trade from the Ottawa Senators, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s happy with the team or with his role on it.

Spezza met with Senators GM Bryan Murray during the usual end of the year talk and expressed displeasure with being the “whipping boy” in Ottawa. It’s a valid claim, especially considering how hard Sens fans can be on the centreman. Blamed almost entirely for his team’s playoff failure, Spezza hasn’t exactly been a fan favourite.

Spezza has a no-trade clause which kicks into gear on July 1, so there’s some rounded speculation that he may be traded prior to the date. The feeling is right now that the Senators wouldn’t be all that opposed to moving him, either, especially if it was for the right price and to the right place. But with five years left on his contract and a cap hit of $7 million per year (!), he’s not the easiest guy to offload.

In 2007, Spezza signed a seven-year contract extension worth a whopping $49 million.

You have to imagine that Spezza would appreciate a fresh start in another market, too, especially with his reputation quickly becoming inescapable. At 26, he’s still a young player and yet he’s shouldered all of the responsibilities in a tough hockey market that’s seen its fair share of disappointment. He finished the regular season with 57 points in 60 games and popped in a goal and added six assists in his team’s playoff series against the Penguins, but fans seem most poised to focus on the fact that he went -3 in the series.

It’s this time of rain cloud sentiment that has to be bogging Spezza down as a young player. Without the ability to gain any momentum among a slew of fair weather fans - we have no shortage of those in Vancouver, so don’t think it’s an Ottawa thing - it’s hard for him to gain ground and work on his skills.

It’s probably the best thing for both the Senators and Spezza, to say nothing of their fairweather fans, to part ways before it’s too late. Moving him prior to July 1 could open up some options for off-season building and could take the team in a new direction. It could also give a young player a fresh start.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

Speculation is running rampant over Atlanta Thrashers goalie Kari Lehtonen and a possible trade with the Dallas Stars. Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is one of the lead reporters on this story in Atlanta and he’s saying that the deal could be done any time now.

Dallas will be sending prospect Ivan Vishnevskiy to Atlanta in exchange for Lehtonen. The deal opens up trade rumours over the future of Marty Turco, of course, and that could mean that Dallas could be looking to move him soon as well.

Lehtonen is currently worth about $3 million this season and will become an unrestricted free agent, so the move makes sense considering Atlanta’s recent restocking process. Now that the Trashers can use Ondrej Pavelec and veteran Johan Hedberg as a goaltending tandem, Lehtonen’s the obvious odd man out.

Lehtonen hasn’t appeared in a game this season and has just come off a two-week conditioning run with the Chicago Wolves in the AHL. His trade value can’t be all that high because of that, but it looks like the Stars are willing to take the risk.

Turco is set for unrestricted free agency on July 1 and there hasn’t been much talk in Dallas of keeping him in the fold.

UPDATE: This trade is now official. Atlanta is also getting a fourth round draft pick.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

A whole lot of names are being batted around alongside Ilya Kovalchuk, as an eventual destination for the Thrasher could be just about anywhere. Looking around online, it’s getting increasingly more difficult to sort out the facts from the rumours. At this point and time, nothing is known in concrete terms about where Kovalchuk could wind up.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to take a look at some of the scraps, right?

The Los Angeles Kings are said to be in the market for Kovalchuk, says Ken Campbell from The Hockey News. Campbell cited multiple sources when he said that the Kings were interested in the player, but he also noted that the asking price was more than Dean Lombardi wanted to spend. Even so, terms are being bandied about between the Thrashers and Kings and that stands as being a possible trade that could see Kovalchuk sunning it up in California.

The thing people need to keep in mind, as Campbell pointed out, is that Kovalchuk may actually not move before the March 3 deadline. While most observers think the guy’s going to get passed somewhere else, it may not actually happen. As surprising as the possibilities are, it’s also possible that this whole saga won’t wrap up during this year’s regular season.

Then there’s the possibility of Kovalchuk going to Colorado, a possibility floated in theory form by Rory Boylen’s blog. He noted that the Avalanche have a history of shrewd moves of this nature and that their position in the standings could lend them to interest in a player of Kovalchuk’s calibre. Pierre Lacroix did indeed spend some bank on building big teams for his championships and he didn’t think twice about adding players like Patrick Roy, Ray Bourque and Rob Blake to the mix. While Greg Sherman is the GM, Lacroix still parks in the presidential parking space and may have the clout to swing something.

Lacroix could go Kovy if need be and, with about $7 million in cap space available, anything’s possible.

Yahoo Sports has reported rumours of Kovalchuk heading to Toronto. Of course, no circle of trade talks would be complete without somehow interjecting the Blessed Leafs into the deal. Even so, Mark J. Miller seems pretty convinced that Kovalchuk could be dressing in blue and white before season’s end.

Miller notes that Brian Burke will need to decide on the future of key components like Ian White and Jonas Gustavsson first, though, and that’s where the absurdity of his report starts to unravel. Is Kovalchuk really worth that type of gamble in Toronto? Isn’t that the exact type of player Burke seems to be against signing?

“There are a bunch of Leafs that become free agents this summer and the team could save itself more than $12 million if it let them all go, but one player cannot replace them all on the ice,” Miller writes. Very astute, Mark. You cannot replace a “bunch of Leafs” with one player.

At the end of the day, it’s still anybody’s guess as to where the Kovalchukian one will end up. But one thing’s for sure: it sure is fun to speculate!

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

It isn’t much of a secret around the horn in Colorado that Marek Svatos is a player on the trading block. The Avalanche forward is being made available at a decent trade offer in the last year of his contract.

Svatos will be available to play by the weekend, having gotten over the groin injury that kept him out of action for a while.

While it’s no secret that he’s available and while this isn’t really “news” for anyone who considers themselves a fan of the Avs, there are a few interesting tidbits about teams who may be interesting in the services of Svatos that could raise a few eyebrows.

Firstly, however, establishing value on Svatos is tricky stuff. He’s not exactly a top-tier guy, but he does have the potential to become a top-line scorer on a team that fits him well. Svatos has good outside speed, too, and is an above-average stickhandler. But whether teams will want to part with more than a mid-round draft pick remains to be seen. The Avs sure don’t have their hopes up to land something huge for the guy.

With two seasons that featured over 25 goals, Svatos can produce offensively too.

The Avs certainly don’t have a spot for him in their roster right now, though, and he doesn’t seem to fit into future plans that include the arrival of Brandon Yip as a full-time member of the club. So offloading him before the deadline would be a good move, but there are a few questions as to whether or not they’ll gamble with him for a few more weeks first.

The advantage of holding on to a guy like Svatos until the cusp of the deadline is that he gets a chance to put the puck in the net a few more times and raise his market value a touch. And the Avs will reap the benefits of that, in theory, if they carve out a spot for him. They can then drop him off at a slightly higher trade value and everybody wins.

Teams like Toronto, Ottawa and Boston are said to have expressed interest in Svatos, so they may have something decent to offer Greg Sherman.

Right now, Svatos’ only role on the club is to serve as a sort of insurance policy to Milan Hedjuk. Whether that’s worth the money he makes is another story, of course, and all signs are pointing to the fact that Avs are just fine going into the future without that extra touch of expensive coverage on Hedjuk.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

Montreal GM Bob Gainey took the opportunity to set the record straight on the matter of goaltender Jaroslav Halak, telling RueFrontenac.com that he initiated contact with Philly GM Paul Holmgren about moving the player. This is interesting because Gainey rarely, if ever, discusses trades and possible deals with the media.

“All I can tell you is that I called the Flyers, not the other way around,” Gainey said.

Gainey went on to say that the Flyers had shown little to no interest in Halak and that the conversation was very brief. No details were discussed and that was it.

Speculation had been running rampant about a possible deal involving the Flyers and Habs. Many reports suggested that Gainey had been looking for a top-six forward in exchange for his goalie, but he dismissed that scenario as not being realistic. It isn’t clear as to what Gainey expected to get in return for his goalie.

Gainey also confirmed that he had been shopping Halak around to some other teams in the NHL. His apparent goal at the moment is for Halak to have a shot at being a top goaltender on another club, essentially admitting that his opportunities with the Habs are destined to be small.

So it appears that Gainey is going to continue looking to find the right spot for Halak on another club and that his expectations for a return on the goalie aren’t very high. With this news out in the open, it has to impact how Halak feels in Montreal and how he fits in as a member of the franchise. Because of this, it’s reasonable to anticipate that a deal comes sooner rather than later.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

Reports out of Florida indicate that the Panthers are shopping around goalie Tomas Vokoun. GM Randy Sexton is said to be contacting other GMs around the league with the intention of moving his goaltender and figuring out his options, so the veteran keeper could be on the move possibly even before the holiday roster freeze.

Some analysts are saying that Vokoun has become almost expendable in Florida with prospect Jacob Markstrom looking to join the club at the start of the next season.

The Panthers are said to be ready to move Vokoun prior to Markstrom’s arrival and have been looking at packaging other players up with him, such as forward Nathan Horton and Rostislav Olesz.

There is a sense among the league’s GMs that Sexton is simply asking too much for Vokoun’s services at this point. While Vokoun is only 33 years of age, there’s a sense that the goalie’s better days may be behind him and that he has already come into his top form.

Then there’s the cap hit on the goalie, which sits at a juicy $6.3 million. Vokoun has one year remaining on his deal with Florida and that could be a hard thing to move over at this point and time.

While the Panthers may be eager to move him sooner, the logical answer would be to let Vokoun ride out the remainder of the year in relative ease before letting him go to market. Moving him sooner than that simply seems like a headache for Sexton and Co. unless a reasonable package deal can be arranged that would also help the club offload Horton and Olesz.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.