Rumor: 3 teams making a push for Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds.

There have been some really big names taken off the board already ahead of the trade deadline for the 2018 - 2019 National Hockey League regular season and that may have been enough to apply serious pressure to some of the teams out there who have been hoping to add a significant piece.

The biggest shocker of all has to be the fact that the Columbus Blue Jackets have emerged as serious buyers at the deadline, acquiring star center Matt Duchene in a huge deal with the Ottawa Senators. The Blue Jackets then followed that stunning trade up with another shocker yesterday when they once again made a deal with those very same Senators, this time picking up forward Ryan Dzingel, another one of the names on just about every trade bait list. That not only removed 2 forwards from the market completely but also did so while adding them to a team that no one viewed as a real player in terms of adding before the deadline.

This means that teams like the Boston Bruins, Winnipeg Jets, Nashville Predators, Calgary Flames, San Jose Sharks now have much more limited options in terms of the players that are available out there. Additionally the Rangers also traded veteran forward Mats Zucarello on Saturday night so that further thinned the market for forwards, although it likely also took the Dallas Stars out of the running for any of the other forwards on the market. With so few quality forwards remaining out there on the market it appears that several teams have now begun to pick up the urgency of their trade talks when it comes to Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds. 

Recent comments from Sportsnet's National Hockey League insider Elliotte Friedman would appear to indicate that the interest has picked up considerably when it comes to Simmonds and if any of the teams interested watched him play last night that interest will only increase. The most interesting part of Friedman's comments however were he revealed the names of the three teams that he feels will be making an attempt to acquire Simmonds ahead of the deadline.

"I think you're gonna see some teams start pushing for him," began Friedman before adding "San Jose, Calgary and Winnipeg..."

His addition to any of those three rosters would be massive, and it will be interesting to see how much of a price the Flyers can extract for Simmonds given that he now has to be one of the best available forwards on the market.