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.

It might be hard to believe, but the Ottawa Sun is reporting that the Edmonton Oilers are trying to shop Sheldon Souray around to ditch his cap hit. Souray is worth $5.4 million against the cap and that might be something the Oilers are interested in getting rid of, says the paper.

Of course, Souray has a no-trade clause and will thus have to give the a-okay to any deal struck. Whether the Oilers want to go down that sort of road again remains to be seen and there doesn’t seem to be much sense in the team moving their power play point man at this point. Finding a replacement for Souray’s shot would be difficult, but stranger things have happened.

Souray is 32 years old and has three years left on his contract, so moving him would free up a good amount of cash for the Oil.

Among the teams shopped around for Souray’s services in the rumour mill are the Montreal Canadiens. This is especially interesting because it would that Sheldon would return to the fold. The Oilers have been showing considerable interest in Andrei and Sergei Kostitsyn, says the Sun, and could be jockeying for position to gain their services by batting Souray’s name into the mix.

The Oilers were also discussing a deal involving Andrew Cogliano and the Habs in some capacity, so that also may come about. Cogliano’s name has been included in various trade rumours as of late.

Trading Souray might look like an odd, unbelievable move at this point and time. The Oilers would certainly miss his presence, but if they have a goal in mind and a set of players they’re interested in they could reasonably pull the trigger on a trade with the big defenceman.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

First the Anaheim Ducks have had to deal with word that their goaltender, J.S. Giguere, was unhappy. The rumours are starting again this week, with rumblings that defenceman Scott Niedermayer might be looking for a way out, too.

With the Ducks sitting near the basement of the Western Conference and with Niedermayer certainly not getting any younger, some are starting to suggest that the defender might be willing to move to a team like the New Jersey Devils.

When asked about a potential trade, Niedermayer was honest: “I think it’s a possibility. Last year we were kind of in a situation where we were teetering and there was some talk and rumors. You start to think about it. But I’m not thinking about that right now. Our goal right now is to do well on this road trip, to play good hockey and get into the playoff picture and compete with this team. When those bridges come, I’ll deal with them.”

Niedermayer currently sits on the Ducks with a one-year contract worth $6 million. He does not have a no-trade clause.

“If the team came to me, they’d be free to do what they wanted. I don’t have a no-trade,” he said. “We’re still a ways from there. When the time comes, hopefully we’ll be in the playoffs and ready to compete for the Stanley Cup.”

The Devils would have to be the frontrunners for Niedermayer’s services at this point. Before he signed with the Ducks for this season, the New Jersey club was interested and Lou Lamoriello did inquire as to the possibility. Some are speculating that Niedermayer might be game for joining his brother Rob on the Devils for one last run with his old club before retirement.

“Obviously I was with (Devils head coach) Jacques (Lemaire) here for quite a long time and had some success here. He’s a good coach,” Niedermayer said. “So I’m not surprised to see where those guys are. They’re a good hockey club and Jacques is a great coach.”

Whether there are moves in the air remains to be seen, of course, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if the Ducks started making some major shifts to recover at least some of the current season. It may be time for a shake-up in Anaheim and moving Niedermayer might just be the type of thing to change fortunes for the team.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

Tomas Kaberle has long been the subject of trade rumours in Toronto as fans go wholesale with their demands to reshape the team. If it means anything, though, the defenceman is pretty set on staying in the city even if some fans don’t appreciate his efforts.

Kaberle told the Toronto Sun that he hopes to be able to stay in the blue and white. As most know, he has a no-trade clause and would need to give the go-ahead before being moved. His agent, Rick Curran, told the Sun that he had not been approached regarding his client.

“Tomas has made his decision to remain a Leaf and his feelings have not changed. He is just as frustrated as the other players and, if anything, he is even more anxious to get it turned around,” said Curran.

Reports have been floating around involving a trade with the Chicago Blackhawks that would see Patrick Sharp and Kris Versteeg come to Toronto in exchange for Kaberle, but as usual GM Brian Burke wasn’t having that.

“We have never discussed Kaberle,” Burke said, adding that the report has “no legs.”

While we’ve all heard Burke tell a tale on one hand while working a little magic with the other, it may be possible that Toronto will want to hold on to Kaberle at this point. He’s been one of their better players and is a terrific puck-moving defenceman when he’s on his game. It may well be worth it for the club to stay the course, at least through the balance of the season.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

According to NESN.com, there’s absolutely no progress on talks between Phil Kessel and the Boston Bruins. Kessel’s agent, Wade Arnott, told NESN.com that there’s nothing major to report. Speculation is that the talks between the Bruins and Kessel could run well into training camp and even into pre-season hockey.

“We’ve had a few more discussions recently,” Arnett added, “but are we any closer to an agreement? I’d have to say no at this point.”

The problem here is that Kessel isn’t even due back from shoulder surgery until November or December, so it does make some sense for the Bruins to hold off a little on putting together anything serious. Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli has been speaking with his player, but for anything concrete to develop at this point might not be in the best interest of the club.

That’s not to say that this has stopped speculation from various sources on the Kessel situation from taking place. Some rumours have him headed to the San Jose Sharks, which is incidentally also rumoured to be the location of choice for one Dany Heatley, but Sharks GM Doug Wilson had nothing to say beyond the usual “anything is possible” mantra.

The Islanders have also been looking at Kessel, along with Bruins forward Marco Sturm, so it’s possible that there may be a deal in the works yet. While it’s always a risk for a team to acquire a player that won’t be in action until a month or two into the season, a healthy Phil Kessel can make a difference on just about any team in the league and I can see why there would be some interest around Chiarelli’s doorstep.

Even so, the odds are that we’ll just have to wait and see what will happen in the Kessel situation. Like Wilson said, anything certainly is possible.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

“The minimum would be this: a minimum of a first-round pick, a guy that can play on our team right now and a top prospect,” Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke said last week of the desired trade package for defenceman Tomas Kaberle.

Today, Burke took time out of his busy schedule to knock down trade rumours that had Kaberle going to Boston in exchange for Boston’s first and third round picks in the 2009 draft, as well as forward Joe Colborne, the team’s top pick from last season.

Perhaps the biggest selling feature for other teams in terms of Tomas Kaberle is that he has a contract that is relatively easy to handle. He is celebrated for his puck-moving abilities and could be a nice fit on the right squad, but many think he’s worn out his welcome as a Leaf. Kaberle has played all 731 of his NHL games with Toronto, recording 73 goals and 360 assists. He is scheduled to earn $4.25 million in each of the next two seasons.

Burke, meanwhile, is asking a lot in exchange for Kaberle. The GM likes Kaberle and won’t be too eager to move him if the deal isn’t just right, say insiders. And Burke’s been on record saying that he’s going to perform a “wholesale makeover” of the Leafs. Big moves could be - and likely will be - in order for the team. What exactly that means and how it will exactly play out remains to be seen, but with the trade deadline approaching on Wednesday we could be seeing some interesting moves out of the “centre of the hockey universe.”

Keep it locked here for your trade deadline updates.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.