For the past several weeks we've been hearing and reading about plenty of NHL trade rumors involving players with expensive, multi-year contracts. 

Vincent Lecavalier (10 years remaining, average salary cap hit of $7.7 million), Dion Phaneuf (four years remaining, $6.5 million average cap hit), Wade Redden (four years, $6.5 million cap hit), Cristobal Huet (two years left, $5.65 million cap hit), Shawn Horcoff (six years, $5.5 million cap hit), Lubomir Visnovsky (three more years, $5.6 million cap hit)and Sheldon Souray (two years left, $5.4 million average cap hit) have in recent weeks received frequent mention as those who could be on the move by the March 3rd trade deadline. 

Disregarding their varying performances this season and that several have movement clauses the fact they still have several years remaining on their respective contracts with salary cap hits between $5.4-$7.7 million should be the biggest indicator as to why the aforementioned almost certainly won't be going anywhere by the trade deadline. 

Since the NHL implemented a salary cap trades involving players with multi-year contracts rarely occur anymore. 

The most notable involved the Anaheim Ducks trading Sergei Fedorov to Columbus in November 2005, the Boston Bruins peddling Joe Thornton to San Jose in November 2005, the Montreal Canadiens shipped Jose Theodore to Colorado in March 2006 and the Tampa Bay Lightning shipping Brad Richards to Dallas in February 2008. 

The Fedorov and Thornton trades were the last involving notable players on expensive multi-year contracts to occur during the first half of an NHL season. None have occurred since. 

Theodore and Richards are the only two players of note on expensive multi-year contract to be dealt at or within days of the trade deadline.

The reason for this lack of movement is obvious: the salary cap. Teams tend to spend the bulk of their player payroll during the off-season, leaving them very little cap space to absorb other expensive contracts.

To make trades like that nowadays the deals have to be almost dollar-for-dollar, making it very difficult for teams looking to move a high-salaried player with several years left on his contract to find any takers.

This season the NHL salary cap is $56.8 million. The average player payroll is hovering around $55 million. Twenty-five of the league's 30 teams have payroll in excess of $50 million, and those five below that are under self-imposed cap ceilings and aren't planning to go over it.

Keep those factors in mind when reading rumors of high-salaried stars being shopped at the trade deadline.  

The bottom line is there's practically no market for those players at this time of year.