Rumor: 3 frontrunners emerge for Zach Bogosian with 4 additional teams still in the mix.

On Saturday veteran defenseman Zach Bogosian and the Buffalo Sabres officially put an end to their relationship when the 29 year old blue liner cleared waivers, clearing the way for both he and Sabres to mutually terminate his existing contract and making him an unrestricted free agent in the process. The question since then has been where will Bogosian end up and given that the long time National Hockey League veteran wants to continue playing at the NHL level it seems likely that we will be getting an answer in very short order.

It is no surprise that no teams were willing to take him on at his current cap hit of $5.1 million but with Bogosian now a free agent he is much more likely to sign for something akin to the league minimum, a much more appealing price tag for many of the teams around the National Hockey League. As a result Bogosian has drawn significant interest from around the league in spite of his recent slump in performance and now there appear to be 3 teams emerging as frontrunners for his services. To be clear there are more than 3 teams in the mix here, however it does appear as though the other teams in the mix have significantly less interest in getting a deal done.

According to a report on Sunday morning from TSN's NHL insider Darren Dreger, the 3 teams that currently appear to be the "most interested" are the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Carolina Hurricanes, and the Arizona Coyotes. All 3 of these teams have a legitimate shot of making the playoffs this season although given the recent injury to Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Brett Pesce the Hurricanes may be the most desperate of these 3 teams when it comes to their efforts of signing Bogosian. Dreger reports that Bogosian is still considering his options, but there may be other teams in the mix here, including teams that are a lock to make the playoffs, that could potentially still be a factor. 

After reporting that the Maple Leafs were among the contenders on Saturday Dreger now believes that the Leafs interest has "cooled" on Bogosian, and that may be related to the humiliating loss that organization suffered last night. Also still in the mix according to Dreger are the Boston Bruins, the Calgary Flames, and surprisingly the San Jose Sharks. I must admit the Sharks angle does not make any sense to me, there's no chance of the Sharks being a legitimate contender this season and therefore I don't see why they would want to add a player at this stage of the season, but Dreger believes they are in fact in the mix. 

Where do you think he ends up? And perhaps more importantly where do you hope he ends up?