Leafs have taken calls on Nylander, Canes with confirmed interest
By Ryan Fancey
5 years agoLet’s preface this whole thing by saying the chances of William Nylander being moved due to this contract dispute are still slim-to-none. With that said, it’s still worth noting that teams are circling and perhaps making a play at prying him loose from Toronto – at least that’s the word on the street.
Earlier this week in an Insider Trading segment, the usual TSN sources indicated that as this drags on, teams are going to jump in and see what’s up. From Chris Nichols at NicholsOnHockey:
….asked by James Duthie about potential vultures circling on the trade front if the Leafs aren’t able to reach a contract agreement with the Nylander camp. “That’s begun to happen, as you might suspect,.. I’m told a couple of teams have phoned over the past seven days, and I’m told they got a uniform answer from Kyle Dubas, which is, ‘No thanks, we’re not trading him. We’re going to sign this guy.’ So for now, that’s not an avenue I don’t think at all.”
It’s good to hear that Dubas is steadfast in keeping Nylander, which confirms our opinions all along that there’s probably nothing to worry about here. But sometimes things can turn, as we’ve seen in the past with guys like Dougie Hamilton and Phil Kessel (thankfully we don’t have Pete Chiarelli at the helm in Toronto). Plus Nylander’s agent and father have been known to be hard negotiators, so who knows how long this can go, or how many teams might start kicking tires.
Lebrun also added a little more fuel to this fire today, naming the Carolina Hurricanes as a team known to have contact with the Leafs about Nylander.
Again, this is run-of-the-mill stuff in these scenarios, but even if the Leafs are turning away teams right now, it’s worth passing this along to anyone who wants to prepare for the worst.
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