Boudreau on deadline: Players 'either keeping it all bottled up or it's not bothering them'

Bruce Boudreau was running a recent practice when one of his players skated over for a chat.

The Vancouver Canucks head coach assumed winger Conor Garland was going to ask him about trade speculation.

It is, after all, that period in every NHL season when chatter runs rampant as teams look to either load up or rebuild ahead of the looming deadline.

"I thought, 'Uh oh, he's gonna ask me about rumours,'" Boudreau recalled. "He didn't, we talked about a hockey play. There's been nothing said.

"They're either keeping it all bottled up or it's not bothering them."

General managers are working the phones with the league's trade deadline set for Monday at 3 p.m. ET, but coaches also have a job to do navigating emotions, players potentially on edge, and getting their current rosters ready for games as the clock ticks down.

"The media thinks every Canuck player's getting traded," Boudreau added. "Honest to God's truth we haven't had one word said by me about it, and not one player's come up to me."

And while Vancouver is on the playoff bubble and could conceivably go either way at the deadline, teams further the standings are in a different position.

The expansion Seattle Kraken, for example, will no doubt be hoping to deal from their pool of veterans, including captain and defenceman Mark Giordano, as the club tries to accumulate more assets.

"We have to be very careful to speculate," Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol said of how he tackles trade season. "For me, it's just a simple, honest approach. A couple of quiet conversations individually along the way, and really just everybody remaining focused on the job at hand together until things change.

"It's that balance of the long-range planning or thoughts that you might have