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We Might Need To Pump The Brakes on William Nylander at the WJCs

By Justin Fisher

Dec 9, 2015, 19:12 ESTUpdated:

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Last week, we got pretty excited when Swedish news outlet Aftonbladet reported that William Nylander would be made available to Team Sweden at the upcoming IIHF World Junior Championships. We got even more excited when the ‘Tre Kronor’ named him (along with fellow Maple Leafs prospect Dmytro Timashov) to Sweden’s preliminary roster.

After Toronto Marlies General Manager Kyle Dubas joined Sportsnet 590’s Brady & Walker this afternoon, though, it sounds like more than a few people jumped the gun on Nylander’s involvement.

“That decision – and I know he’s on their preliminary roster – that decision for us has not been made yet. There are some rules in the Swedish ice hockey and NHL transfer agreement that deem if he’s still in the American League he has to be offered to Sweden, but we haven’t made any official decision on that yet. I know we’ll have discussions with them and go from there.
[If we do decide to let him go] it’d be a great opportunity and experience for him. I think that those types of events are experiences that come along so rarely for players, and you never know how things are going to shake out at the international stage moving forward. I think for us to deny those types of things is shortsighted.”

So, there you go. It certainly sounds like William Nylander will be allowed by the Maple Leafs to join the Swedish World Juniors squad, but a definitive decision has not yet been made. We’ll keep you posted either way.