With the NHL’s Feb. 25 trade deadline a little more than a month away, the trade market on Matt Duchene should pick up soon.
The Ottawa Senators forward will be an unrestricted free agent at season’s end, and has 16 goals and 40 points in 37 games so far. Given that fact coupled with the reality that Ottawa is one of the Eastern Conference’s basement dwellers, he should have his fair share of suitors.
Especially now that it doesn’t appear a contract extension with Ottawa is in the cards.
“It’s quite interesting that the talks between the Ottawa Senators and Matt Duchene – their pending unrestricted free agent – have appeared to have cooled off,” Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston said on the Headlines segment of Hockey Night in Canada Saturday. “There doesn’t appear to have been anything of substance here in recent times and no talks immediately scheduled in the weeks ahead.
“Pierre Dorion, the general manager, doesn’t want to place any sort of deadline on when he needs an answer on Matt Duchene’s intentions – whether will he sign an extension – but clearly, as this slides along here, we are looking at him as a potential target in that trade deadline period and someone that the Senators are going to have to make a decision on because I don’t get the sense from Duchene’s side that there’s any rush for them to make that kind of decision.”
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