Last Day of Shopping

Sure the Maple Leafs are getting some nibbles.

How about a deal involving Marcel Mueller of the Marlies? Does that get your blood flowing?

If not Mueller, who has attracted some interest in a minor-type deal, maybe Nicolas Deschamps after his big day on Sunday, and given that Deschamps was acquired by the Leaf organization this season in a deal with Anaheim for Luca Caputi, well, that’s sort of trade deadline day material.

Okay, we’re reaching.

But after a flurry of interesting deals last week – Jeff Carter to L.A., Marek Zidlicky to New Jersey, Steve Downie to the desert – things got very, very quiet on the weekend, unless you’re a member of the Ben Bishop family or, of course, a big Ottawa Senators fan who must think this is one magical season.

Make no mistake about it; the Leafs are open for business. The challenge will be, however, that the kind of trades they’re interested in making – hockey trades, to use the common phrase – may not be out there. In other words, deals that aren’t about moving a player for distant futures. Brian Burke could probably be coaxed into moving defenceman Luke Schenn, but it would be for another young player currently skating on an NHL roster, not a pick and a 19-year-old, former second round pick labouring in the USHL.

http://thestar.blogs.com/thespin/2012/02/last-day-of-shopping.html