Top 10 Trade Targets List Has Evolved, With A New #1

We are precisely two months from the NHL's trade deadline, and while several names have been out there most of the season, a couple of new ones will trickle in and out of the rumor mill as we chug towards March 7th.

Insider Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff has dropped his new and refreshed Trade Targets list with eight weeks to go. The last time he released the list, David Jiricek was at No. 1. We all know he has since been moved by the Columbus Blue Jackets to the Minnesota Wild.

Now, we have a new #1 on Seravalli's list, and he seems primed to move on as well:

Brock Nelson, NY Islanders
Yanni Gourde, Seattle Kraken
Taylor Hall, Chicago Blackhawks
Ryan Lindgren, NY Rangers
Dylan Cozens, Buffalo Sabres
Joel Farabee, Philadelphia Flyers
Bowen Byram, Buffalo Sabres
Ivan Provorov, Columbus Blue Jackets
Brandon Tanev, Seattle Kraken
Rasmus Ristolainen, Philadelphia Flyers

"It just feels like (a matter of) time with Brock Nelson," explains Seravalli for putting the lifelong Islander at No. 1.

Not to mention the fact that the supply and demand for centers are way out of whack at this deadline. "There's a big reason why there's two centers at the top of this list. There's way more teams looking for centers than there are centers available."

Nelson and Gourde are both impending unrestricted free agents.

As for Nelson, he's having a down year after three straight 30+ goal seasons, but he still possesses "high-end potential" as Seravalli notes.

Lindgren, at No. 4, is just one of four Rangers on Seravalli's top 25 list, and he feels that the Blueshirts blueline "is a defensive unit in flux... When you think about the Rangers and the struggles that they've had, so many of their concerns emanate from their own end." Hence, all four Rangers on the list are defensemen.

Most of the other names in the Top 10 have had some trade buzz about them already this season.

With players like Cozens and Farabee, they are younger and have several years of term left on their contracts. Seravalli says Cozens, one of three Sabres on his full list, has been receiving more interest from teams around the league than anyone on their roster.