Breaking: Any hope of signing Nylander may now be over.

The saga is not over yet, but we may now already know the outcome. 

For what has been months now the Toronto Maple Leafs have been locked in a very difficult contract negotiation with restricted free agent forward William Nylander and strangely enough at no point have we heard that the two sides were ever close to working out a deal. Nylander is reportedly demanding massive money, somewhere in the range of $9 million or more per season, while the Leafs have been trying to get him signed at a much lower number with neither side moving an inch. 

Earlier this week Sportsnet National Hockey League insider Elliotte Friedman indicated that the two sides had hit a major roadblock in negotiations and, although that did not mean much at the time given the consistent lack of progress in negotiations thus far, Friedman may now have just revealed the first major consequence of that roadblock and the direction of things seem rather definitive now.

On Saturday night during an intermission segment on Hockey Night in Canada Friedman revealed that the Toronto Maple Leafs have now reached out to rival teams and instructed those interested in Nylander to put together their offers for the talented young forward. This would appear to finally be an admission from Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas that his master plan has failed and that he will be forced to move one of this big four forwards in order to make it all work under the NHL's current salary cap. 

There are now less than 3 weeks for the Maple Leafs to get a contract extension worked out with Nylander prior to him being ineligible to play this season and that means there's even less time to get him traded to a team that will have to make negotiations of their own with the young forward. This obviously puts a ton of pressure of the Maple Leafs and Kyle Dubas and it looks like they are now looking to get ahead of it all while they still have some time, albeit very little, to maneuver and get the best deal possible for their team. 

The Hurricanes, Flyers, Kings, Ducks, and Wild have all been linked to Nylander at various points this season, but with the Leafs now openly soliciting offers from around the League he could end up just about anywhere. 

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