I don’t think Sacco cares about trade interest. The dude plays the guys who he thinks are playing best, period. Whether or not we agree with what he thinks is up for debate, but trade interest is for GM’s to worry about, not head coaches. And the healthy scratches for defensemen will only get more interesting when Salei cracks the line-up.

With all the up and coming D-men the avs have, I would not be surprised to see Clark, Liles, Salei and Pressing traded or on Waivers. I don’t think anybody will take Pressing unless its for one of those (reboot/jump-start his career projects) that teams so often do.

Liles could be bundled with another player in a trade, where clark and Salei will fetch 3rd round ( second at best ) draft picks.

There should be modest interest in Liles based on relatively recent past. It happens a lot that a good player loses his confidence/chemistry with a team and then resurrects with a new one. Teams might be interested in giving him a chance to do regain the status he had just two years ago.

Also, I question whether the pine time is hardball, as in, “Yes, you can hold up the trade we want to make if you want to, but if you do, we can be pricks too.” A GM might be willing to send a message that way and other GM’s would probably not discount the player much b/c of it if they knew that was what was going on. Not all of this stuff makes the paper.