LeBrun: Coyotes could deal Vermette as early as January

Pierre LeBrun was on Vancouver’s TSN 1040 on Monday morning.

On the Arizona Coyotes and potential players available:

“Because of where they are in the standings, Don Maloney, GM of the Coyotes, has been busy telling a lot of teams that he’s open for business, that he’s going to basically blow this up to some degree.

“Antoine Vermette is probably going to be one of the first notable names out the door, because he’s UFA July 1 and they’re not going to be able to re-sign him. So he’s a nice asset for them to move. Very useful player who can play center and wing, very responsible in his own zone, and has some offensive touch. So he’ll be an interesting piece and it wouldn’t surprise me if he was move sometime in January, as early as that.

“After that, it gets interesting. Probably the biggest name in play is Keith Yandle. I think people always say, ‘You hear his name every year!’ Well, you did. Except it was never really true in years past. I don’t think Phoenix ever had that much interest in moving him. The difference now is where they are and the fact they have to sort of retool this thing and the fact that he has one year on his deal after this season. You don’t want him to go into next year as a pending UFA because that loses some value as an asset. So I suspect they will really, for the first time, listen to offers on him.”

Source: TSN 1040/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey

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