If Duchene gets traded, Stone might follow him out the door!

We are less than a month away from the trade deadline and things appear to have taken a turn for the worst in Ottawa. 

While Matt Duchene and the Senators keep working towards a contract extension, it doesn’t seem to be close to being done, which prompted the forward to make a blunt statement during practice on Thursday, per the Ottawa Sun. 

“The biggest thing is if I don’t have an answer for them I would expect that they’ll make a move,” Duchene told the Ottawa Sun. “You can’t really afford to let guys go for nothing anymore in this league, or probably ever; you couldn’t do that. I understand that’s the situation.”

While the Sens might be somewhat prepared to lose Duchene closer to the trade deadline, they might not be ready at all to let go of fellow unrestricted free agent Mark Stone. However, according to TSN’s Frank Seravelli, a potential Duchene trade could have Stone walk away from Ottawa as he has now surged to No. 10 on TSN’s latest Trade Bait board. 

“No tangible progress is believed to have been made in negotiations with Duchene or Stone in recent weeks, though Stone told the Sun that would all be done “privately” through his agents at Newport Sports,” writes Seravelli in his latest column on TSN. 

“Stone would generate interest from contenders and rebuilders alike, including his hometown Winnipeg Jets, as an elite 200-foot winger who is averaging a point per game this season.”

As of now, no one is very optimistic about what’s happening in Ottawa. 

"Technically, there is no news. This is not one of those situations where you can say no news is good news," Bob McKenzie said on Insider Trading of the Senators top two pending free agents. "Just no news is no news and the longer it drags on you (just) don't know. What we do get the sense of is that Duchene's agent Pat Brisson and Senators GM Pierre Dorion are going to talk again in the next day or two and the dialogue will continue over the next days or weeks. As far as the representatives for Stone, I don't get the sense that they are making huge progress here, necessarily. But, that pessimism that I have that maybe both of these guys staying Ottawa is more anecdotal than empirical.”

The Senators could lose big if things don’t change before Feb. 25…  the clock is ticking and fans don’t have as much patience anymore in Ottawa.