With less than 40 days to go until the NHL trade deadline, the expectation is that talks will begin heating up in the coming weeks and the Vancouver Canucks will likely be in the thick of things.

The Sabres have the assets to entice Vancouver into a trade. The bigger question is what, exactly, Buffalo might have to give up.

The Vancouver Canucks wouldn’t be the first folks to call a cousin to get them out of a tight jam. But this isn’t My Cousin Vinny; it’s My Expansion Cousin Buffalo, and we’re not talking about a legal conundrum;