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Heard from a well-placed source overnight that the Blackhawks, while not actively pursuing trades themselves, are listening to overtures from a number of teams, and have a fairly long list of available players and prospects.

And numerous teams have called.

None of the players available are "core" players. But 1-2 of the names available might mildly surprise some.

Make no mistake, the Hawks are sitting back and waiting for teams to come to them, and they will very likely deal a defenseman (or two) because of both NHL depth and the development of Ryan Stanton and Stephen Johns specifically. The club is also confident in the longer term prospects of Adam Clendening as a puck rusher.

Two players whose market values (and by contrast their expendability to the Hawks) are high are Niklas Hjalmarsson and Nick Leddy. And just as thousands of fans on message boards have figured out that the Hawk blueline is overcrowded—with the offseason signings of Johnny Oduya, Michal Rozsival and Sheldon Brookbank—so have NHL GMs.

My information is these GMs are calling the Hawks and asking about Leddy and/or Hjalmarsson in particular. Of the two, Leddy's age, salary, NHL experience and potential likely make him the most coveted player on the Hawk blueline—who might also be available.

All for now,


JJ

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