Arizona Coyotes forward Mikkel Boedker is rapidly approaching unrestricted free agency in the offseason and there seems to be little movement in contract talks with the Coyotes.

Will the Arizona Coyotes allow speedy forward Mikkel Boedker to walk into free agency this summer, or will we see a last ditch effort to sign or trade him before the deadline?

Boedker’s one-year $3.75M contract is up at the end of this season which leaves the Coyotes with a problem.

Under ideal circumstances, a forward who looks capable of putting up 50-plus points per season and averaging around 20 goals when healthy is an asset you want to keep happy and on your roster.

The question for the Arizona Coyotes remains whether Boedker really is that guy, and how long will he maintain that level of production if they believe he is? Further, will Boedker still be relevant when the Coyotes’ youth movement is in full swing in the NHL?

He is already 26 years old as he heads into unrestricted free agency.

In December general manager Don Maloney told Sarah McLellan of AZCentral, “We have not had any meaningful dialogue at all, quite frankly, since his one-year contract. So we’ll start up in January and see where we’re at.”

Since then news has been sparse and speculation has been rampant.

It hasn’t helped that Mikkel Boedker is now in the midst of a fifteen game goal-less drought. In those fifteen games, he has managed just six assists yet he is still tied for the Arizona Coyotes’ team lead in point production.

The fact that he continues to lead the team in points despite his lack of production over the past month is as much an indictment of the Coyotes’ offensive stagnation as it is Boedker himself.

One could argue that those numbers are ample reason to pay Mikkel what he is asking for and keep him in the fold.

Alternatively, Mikkel Boedker’s complete lack of production since the end of December can also be seen as leverage in contract negotiations for a player who appears to be seeking a little more money or term than the Coyotes are comfortable with handing out.

Boedker’s agent, Jarrett Bousquet “believed that Boedker could have commanded $5 million per season on the open market before he agreed to a one-year, $3.75 million deal with Arizona as a restricted free agent” according to Arizona Sports’ Craig Morgan.

Bousquet is not wrong.

A forward who can regularly sniff 20 goals and score 50 points is going to command $5 million per year on the free agent market in today’s goal-starved NHL.

Boedker has only broken the 50-point plateau in 2013-14, however, and has never scored more than 19 goals. He looked set to topple those numbers this season until his recent dry spell.

That is the risk the Arizona Coyotes must come to grips with.

Boedker is the definition of a streaky scorer with eight of his 12 goals coming in just three contests thanks to two hat tricks against Ottawa.

While every non point-per-game scorer could be considered streaky, Boeds is among a team full of hot and cold scorers which contributes to offensive issues like we’ve seen in the past month.

When no one is hot, the Coyotes are not even pedestrian. They are awful. And when Boedker is not scoring, he is not contributing much in any other facet of the Coyotes’ game.

If terms cannot be be reached by February 29th, the Coyotes could also look to trade Boedker for more future assets.

It would be ideal for both parties if Boedker’s production picked up in the ensuing weeks to make both contract talks and potential trade talks more enticing.

Without that, moving Boedker for a useful piece may require another asset that Don Maloney is unwilling to part with.

If Maloney can shift Boedker for a fairly young, right-handed top-four viable defenseman it would seem like a wonderful scenario for both parties. Mikkel Boedker would be free to hit the trade market without fan outcry, and the Arizona Coyotes would be shoring up the biggest hole in their lineup.

Boedker could possibly even move to a team in real competition for the Stanley Cup.

Most importantly for the Arizona Coyotes, they could be missing out on signing another albatross contract that the player cannot live up to in the same vein as the one given to Mike Smith.

If Don Maloney believes there’s even a twenty-five percent chance of that happening, he should be working the phones right now.

Keeping Mikkel Boedker on the roster to push for a playoff berth that will inevitably end in the first or second round is not a wise move. The best years for this franchise to compete are ahead of them.

Maloney needs to resolve this saga prior to the trade deadline or face the Coyotes losing an asset in free agency for nothing.

Losing Boedker for nothing would be a tough pill to swallow for the organization at this critical stage.