from Eric Duhatschek of The Athletic,

The NHL holiday roster freeze is over, New Year’s Day is just around the corner and the first handful of teams will reach the midpoints of their seasons next week already. You know what that means. We’re at the point of the season where things start to get interesting.

Where separation starts to occur.

When the teams begin to divide themselves into buyers and sellers, ahead of the March 3 NHL trade deadline.

And while there probably aren’t going to be many major deals until closer to the deadline (because teams need to preserve as much salary-cap space as possible), this is the point where the exploratory talks become something a little more than just idle chatter. Is Patrick Kane really going to move? Is Jonathan Toews? When will the Jakob Chychrun era finally end in Arizona?

There is always a difference between what will happen, what could happen and what should happen. We plant ourselves firmly in that third corner — what should happen if the NHL could ever get as bold as the NBA in terms of shuffling pieces around.

Sadly, if last year’s deadline proved anything it’s the teams that were the boldest and most aggressive — we’re thinking primarily of the Florida Panthers here — which didn’t get the result they wanted. Does that make teams more hesitant this time around? Possibly. Collectively, NHL general managers tend to be a conservative group at the best of times.

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