"It's hard to keep track of [the rumors]," he said. "It changes on almost a daily basis it seems like. It's something that every week a new situation presents itself, and that comes from our team, how our record is, other teams how their record is, guys get hurt. My name is kind of always linked in different team's talks. Like I said, I had to deal with it last summer and earlier in the year. It has helped to have to deal with it on a more regular basis because at that point you don't let it affect your game, you're able to separate the two. At this point we just have to wait and see what happens."
Shattenkirk has been the subject of trade rumors since before the 2016 NHL Draft in June.
"I think, more than anything, the unsettling part about it is you don't know where or when it's going to be, that can weigh on your mind," he said. "I think last summer made it a little easier because there was a frenzy there in early July, right around the draft, and I had the end of the summer to take a breath and get to camp and focus on that. Now it's become something that, I wouldn't even say it's flattering, it just becomes more … routine than anything."
St. Louis fired Hitchcock on Wednesday and replaced him with Yeo, who was an associate coach in line to take over next season.
"In my mind, I was thinking earlier on in the season, 'We're used to being at the top heap and maybe that makes me safer,'" Shattenkirk told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Tuesday, prior to Hitchcock being fired. "If we're [the last place] Colorado [Avalanche], I probably would have been out of here a month ago. It's hard to say what we're going to do now."
