from Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun,

It’s hard to predict what’s going to happen once the puck is dropped for real, but already GMs and pro scouts in the 30 NHL cities are making their lists and checking them twice to see what players may be available to help them for the stretch drive in the final two months of the season.

“There’s teams sniffing around already,” said one league executive at a recent pre-season game. “Teams always talk just to see where everybody is at and teams can usually tell a week into training camp where they think they might need help or depth before the end of the year.”

Naturally, a lot of the decisions at the deadline will be determined by the standings. People will talk a lot about the futures of unrestricted free-agent forwards Steve Stamkos (Tampa) and Anze Kopitar (Los Angeles), but both are going to stay put.

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