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Trade rumours are like cooking.

You put everything in a pot, turn up the heat and bring the ingredients to a boil. You then turn down the temperature, let everything simmer and reduce. What’s left in the bottom of the pot is either something you want to savour or toss in the garbage.

The Noah Hanifin rumour is in the simmer stage.

The restricted free-agent defenceman is cooking up interest because he’s 21, is coming off a career-high 32-point season (10-22) with the retooling Carolina Hurricanes and could be moved. Hanifin was a second-pairing defender this season on a club with back-end depth — Justin Faulk, Jaccob Slavin and Brett Pesce are slotted ahead of him — and there’s a desire to land an impact forward.

It’s why suitors with talented kids to dangle will kick the tires on Hanifin. The fifth overall pick in the 2015 draft not only moves well for a 6-foot-3, 206-pound blue-liner and is good in transition, his puck possession and production at even strength this season also took a leap. However, all that should be tempered because he didn’t face top lines, his defensive game needs to grow and he was a minus-20.