Marchant was the subject of a recent trade rumorwhich, reading into the statistics, would make sense on paper if the Ducks desire more offense. AsMarchant himself said Thursday, “if this team was relying on me to score goals, we’d be in big trouble.”

“Probably 95 percent of all the rumors don’t ever happen anyway,” Marchant said.”I heard my name. Throughout my entire career I’ve heard my name in trade rumors — I’m going here, I’m going there, I’m doing this, I’m doing that — I try not to let it bother me.”

He pointed to the fact that he’s only been traded once in his career, for Craig MacTavish in 1994, in a deal that sent Marchant from the New York Rangers to the Edmonton Oilers. He went from Edmonton to Columbus as a free agent in 2003, and Anaheim claimed Marchant off the waiver wire in 2005.

The 36-year-old has gone from a 20-goal scorer at his peak seven years ago, to a scrappy defensive specialist. Marchant is averaging 3 minutes, 50 seconds per game short-handed this season, third among all NHL forwards, and logged another 3:17 as the Ducks killed off five penalties Thursday.

So while his game has changed, his value — to this team, at least — probably hasn’t. Trading their best penalty-killing forward during a string of 12 successful penalty kills might be ill-advised; the Ducks have generally played poorly in short-handed situations this season.

“My job is to bring energy, be a good penalty killer, be good on faceoffs, do the little things to help this team be successful, and I try to do that every night,” Marchant said.