Top 10 most likely to get traded: 10: Ryan Whitney - TRADED 9: Jason Smith - NOT TRADED - Though not for lack of trying 8: Jeff Finger - TRADED 7: Jason Wiliams - NOT TRADED - Asking price too high 6: Adrian Aucoin - NOT TRADED - Though he tried! 5: Brent Sopel - NOT TRADED - He's taggable and PIT only got lowball offers so they decided to keep Brent 4: Jonathan Cheechoo - NOT TRADED - Asking price too high 3: Andy Sutton - NOT TRADED - Lowball offers deterred any movement on him 2: Brad Richards - NOT TRADED - Despite his huge upcoming salary he was just too important to the Leafs playoff drive 1: Michael Rozsival - NOT TRADED - The marked dropped out on him...
Yowch 2/10!
My feeling is that when a bunch of new "sellers" joined the mix, the market for the types of players who teams were "trying" to move completely dropped out. Rozival is a pefect example as VAN actually got decent offers heading into the deadline, and they hoped the offers would increase in value, but with a bunch of new sellers joining in at the last minute the value of guys like Rozsival actually dropped - and teams like VAN decided it was not worth it to move these guys. This market shift really hurt teams like WAS who were already asking way too much for their guys - they had no hope. The teams who benefitted were the sellers who made moves in the week heading up to the deadline and the buyers who waited until the deadline to add the pieces they needed.