from Mark Whicker of the LA Daily News,

Clearly, Buffalo would demand silver and gold for Myers. It would gravely pain Bob Murray, the general manager, to give up Vatanen and Nick Ritchie, the power forward who was last year’s No. 1 draft choice. Centers Rickard Rakell and William Karlsson would be candidates too, as would incipient free agent Matt Beleskey.

But there comes a time to stop postponing the future. Especially when Myers would still be part of that future.

The Ducks won the Cup in 2007 They have won two playoff series since. Their two essential players, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, are right in the sweet spot, both turning 30 in May.///

So Lombardi would be wildly disinclined to trade Justin Williams, the Conn Smythe winner. But Williams becomes a free agent this summer, as does Jarret Stoll. Given that Tyler Toffoli and Tanner Pearson are tomorrow’s offense, and that everyone else either makes too much money or isn’t that trade-valuable, what else do you do?

The other scenario, hatched in Toronto, has the Kings getting Maple Leafs’ captain Dion Phaneuf for Richards in a big salary swap. Phaneuf played for Darryl Sutter in Calgary. Nothing else about it makes sense.

Give the Kings a week of wins and you can see another Stanley Cup coming to shore. But you’d rather be the team that trades because it wants to, not because it must.

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