from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

The two teams that have the most phones ringing right now in the National Hockey League are St. Louis and Calgary. The reason? Both have solid, Top four defencemen they might be willing to trade for the right forward.

Blues left-winger Jaden Schwartz busted his ankle in practice Friday, going down in the midst of a warmup drill. He’s had surgery already and will be re-evaluated in 12 weeks, the Blues announced Saturday. That leaves St. Louis without three of their top nine forwards for an extended period of time: Paul Stastny (broken foot), is out at least five more weeks; Patrik Berglund, who is skating, is coming off of shoulder surgery and won’t be ready at least until the new year....

“Everyone is looking for defencemen,” one scout said this past week. “There simply aren’t enough NHL defenceman to service 30 teams. Especially Top six.” An exercise his team did in the offseason was to count the number of legit No. 1 defencemen in the game today. “We came up with 11.”

Calgary needs scoring as well. If they and the Blues can part with a quality D-man, expect a ton of interest, led by the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Blues GM Doug Armstrong would prefer to move Carl Gunnarsson, a No. 4-5 defenceman and pending UFA, but that would only bring back a Cam Atkinson-type player, should he deal with the Jackets. If St. Louis wants a Top 6 forward in return, they may dangle Shattenkirk, who has one year left on his deal beyond 2015-16.

In Calgary, pending UFA Kris Russell would fetch a second-line forward for sure. Chicago might be sniffing around the Flames for some defensive depth — they likely can’t afford Russell under their cap. You can bet the Hawks are trying to peddle big, disappointing winger Bryan Bickell, who has been on the market since summertime.

read on for more Western Conference topics...