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It's still very early in the season, but the trade winds could already be blowing.
Dreger on TSN: #Ducks are looking for a defenseman. #Leafs, #Penguins, #Flyers involved. Anaheim may part with young forward for D help.
— Todd Cordell (@ToddCordell) October 4, 2013
The Pittsburgh Penguins have history dealing defensemen to Anaheim recently, they sent Ryan Whitney there in 2009 for Chris Kunitz and Eric Tangradi and then earlier this year the Pens dealt Ben Lovejoy for a 2014 5th round pick.
With Tomas Vokoun on LTIR and his salary off the books for 3-6 months, Pittsburgh no longer has a huge salary cap concern like earlier in the summer when most (here included) believed Matt Niskanen would be out the door. Niskanen, at $2.3 million salary, does offer some ability to fill in as a top four defenseman in case of injury.
Who would the Pens be looking to move? Simon Despres has been sent to Wilkes-Barre and with reports that he came to training camp out of shape, he might be a player on the outs with management. Deryk Engelland was a healthy scratch on opening night, but give his very cheap salary (and element of physicality) he's a great option to have as a #7 member. The Pens also have several blue-chip prospects, but are not likely to traded like Derrick Pouliot (sent to Juniors, can't be recalled), Olli Maatta (too valuable to Pittsburgh) and Brian Dumoulin (0 NHL games) probably isn't worth trading for from Anaheim's view.
We'll see what develops of this, could be nothing, could be a situation where Anaheim likes another team's player (or price) better...Or the Penguins might be ready to pounce in the trade market again.