McKenzie: "No evidence" Coyotes ready to move Yandle

Bob McKenzie was on TSN 1050 Tuesday afternoon.

On if we could see Arizona deal a defenseman, with so many teams around the NHL needing them:

“Well, it’s one of their options. They’re potentially looking at maybe moving one of their defensemen. But here’s the problem they run into. Their best defenseman - or the guy that everybody wants - is Keith Yandle. I don’t think Phoenix wants to do anything that big.”

Feels like he’s been in trade rumors forever.

“Oh, he gets mentioned like all the time. Thus far it has been pretty clear that Phoenix hasn’t wanted to go down that road. Or if they were exploring it, they never got anything they felt would be worth their while.

“So I think it’s more along the lines of some of their younger defensemen that aren’t fully formed yet. Guys like Michael Stone or Brandon Gormley, who just got called up from the minors and has been kind of slow. First round pick – they anticipated he was going to be a real good defensemen for them. Whether it’s his lack of development or the Phoenix Coyotes like to bring people along slowly, he still isn’t really an NHL regular and maybe this is an opportunity for him right now.

“In any case, the sense seems to be they’ve got a little more depth on defense than they do up front and that if they could help themselves by moving a defenseman to get a forward, then I think that’s something they would entertain.

“But again, as I said, Yandle will be the guy everybody wants and I have no evidence to suggest they’re ready to make that move.”

Source: TSN 1050/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey