It was Sunday afternoon, and the general manager of a contending team conceded that as of that moment, there were still just two sellers on the trade market. It was a little frustrating, but it hadn’t stopped conversations from happening all over the league.

“There’s a lot more talks now,” he said.

Then he offered a brief hint of optimism.

“Who knows? Something may happen tonight,” he said.

A few hours later, the Dallas Stars suffered a crushing loss at the hands of the Nashville Predators, blowing a 3-0 lead to ultimately lose to Nashville, 5-3.

It was Dallas’ fifth loss in six February games, and dropped the Stars to eight points behind the Predators in the wild-card standings, and six behind the Los Angeles Kings, who are enjoying a bye week.

It was the kind of loss that if you were a general manager on the fence with your team regarding whether or not to sell, well, the fence just collapsed.