Report: Surprising team enters the mix for William Nylander.

The trade speculation surrounding the Toronto Maple Leafs and specifically young forward William Nylander has really ramped up over the past 48 hours and it's now sounding like the contenders are distinguishing themselves from the pretenders.

Based on reports earlier today it now sounds like the Carolina Hurricanes have distinguished themselves as the clear favorite to acquire Nylander if the Maple Leafs and Leafs' general manager Kyle Dubas do end up pulling the trigger on a trade. Dubas was in Raleigh this week to take in a Hurricanes game and the Hurricanes sent a scouting mission of their own to Toronto over the week-end so it's safe to say there is a lot of mutual interest there, but that doesn't mean that the Hurricanes are the only game in town. 

In fact a very surprising candidate has entered the mix, one that from the outside looking in doesn't appear to make a ton of sense to me. According to a report from The Fourth Period's Dennis Bernstein the Los Angeles Kings' of all teams have inquired about the availability of Nylander and presumably have interest in bringing the young forward to Los Angeles as a result. 

The Kings would not appear to be a natural fit for Nylander primarily due to the fact that they currently only boast just barely $400,000 in salary cap space, nowhere near enough to accommodate the salary of $8 million per season that Nylander's camp is reportedly demanding from the Maple Leafs. Add to that the fact that the Leafs are reportedly looking for a quality defenseman in any trade that would involve Nylander and the Kings' candidacy for Nylander becomes even more confusing. The only defenseman on the Kings roster that would come anywhere near that kind of cap hit is star blue liner Drew Doughty, and there's just no way that the Kings would consider trading Doughty just after signing him to a mega contract worth an average annual value of $11 million per season. 

Berstein is a legitimate source however, especially when it comes to information regarding the Los Angeles Kings organization, and it will be very interesting to see if more information regarding how the Kings plan to pull this off becomes available. 

Stay tuned.

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