from Andrew Berkshire of Sportsnet,

As the NHL’s All-Star Weekend comes to a close, intrepid Sportsnet editor Rory Boylen tasked me with finding some players who could be moved at the NHL’s trade deadline under a month from now who aren’t necessarily the big or expensive names, but based on some of the underlying numbers, could provide teams with a lot of value for a bargain.

Putting together lists like that is always a bit of a challenge, because you want to first start out with the logic that most of the players traded on deadline day will be on expiring deals, then you have to thin things out even further and look mostly at teams who are outside of the playoff picture.

So the players we’re looking for should ideally be:

1. on expiring contracts
2. on non-playoff teams
3. good players
4. not obvious names....

Andreas Athanasiou is rumoured to be on the block, which makes sense since the Red Wings have never really shown as much interest or trust in him as you would expect for such an exciting player, and his contract is a steal at $3M AAV for another year after this one.

Athanasiou leads the entire NHL in scoring chances off the rush per minute played, and he attacks with speed more often than Nathan MacKinnon or Connor McDavid. Surely that’s tantalizing enough to ignore any defensive issues.

more players mentioned including Thomas Vanek...