Sometimes, to pull off a trade in the NHL, you've simply got to wait out the other side.
Arizona Coyotes GM Don Maloney is open for business on nearly every veteran NHL player he has, according to a variety of news outlets. No rumors, no tricks - he's willing to deal, he's just biding his time until he finds the right suitors, willing to pay his exorbitant asking price.
The Vancouver Canucks and GM Jim Benning, on the cusp of a playoff spot and dealing with some poor recent play, are interested in center Martin Hanzal, according to TSN's Eliotte Friedman.
"I think Vancouver, for example, would be interested," Friedman said on Calgary's Sportsnet 960, per NicholsOnHockey.com, as part of a larger discussion on the Coyotes available talent. "They're not going to pay what he wants. I look at what Vancouver's got and I don't know this for sure, but I guarantee he's talking like Horvat and a pick. And I just don't think the Canucks are going to do that."
And therein lays the rub for Maloney - he wants to get maximum value for a player like Hanzal, but he also has a mandate from ownership to shed salary and make the team younger in the process.
Again, the player is available, but the price is significant. At some point, as we inch closer to the deadline, Maloney's prices will either skyrocket as teams bid for a players services or they may very well drop to more reasonable levels as time slips away for him to enact a trade.
The potential asking price of Bo Horvat - an immensely talented former first-round pick that, at only 19 years old, is just getting his first taste of life with the big club this season - and a pick seems ludicrous for a quality, but ultimately limited player in Hanzal.
Yes, Hanzal is big - 6-foot-5, 230-pounds - and productive - he's got eight goals in 37 games this season - and he plays all 200 feet, but he's either a good third-line center or a middling second-line center.
If the price eventually drops, Hanzal could be a quality deadline addition to the Canucks. If it doesn't, Benning will go hunting elsewhere.
