Lightning GM Steve Yzerman crushes your Marty St. Louis trade dreams

It was a tantalizing idea: That Marty St. Louis would waive is no-move clause and allow himself to be flipped by the Tampa Bay Lightning for an impressive bounty. That a player with arguably more going for him that Jarome Iginla would hit the trading block, with a team like the Boston Bruins throwing elbows to the front of that line.

It’s just not going to happen, according to GM Steve Yzerman.

ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun spoke with Stevie Y about the potential of a St. Louis trade, and the general manager shut’er down:

"Marty St. Louis is not going to be traded," Steve Yzerman told ESPN.com on Friday. "He remains one of the best players in the league and an extremely important player to our team, both on and off the ice. We are a team in transition, we just made a coaching change, Marty is one of the leaders of the team, he is not going anywhere."

In other words, he’s part of the solution, not the problem, so why wouldn’t the Lightning keep him around? Yzerman went on to speak about St. Louis’s work ethic and how that raises the competition level for his teammates. It’s an irreplaceable intangible, to go along with his still-stellar stats.

So good news, Steve Stamkos: You'll have someone there to help you score many, many goals for the foreseeable future.