Rumor: Hurricanes continue to target 2 Leafs in trade talks.

The saga surrounding former restricted free agent forward William Nylander is now long over but there may still be fallout that comes as a result of Nylander's extended contract hold out with the Maple Leafs. 

At the time that Nylander was sitting out we heard all kinds of trade rumors linking Nylander to a number of different organizations across the National Hockey League. That being said though there was one name that kept coming up over and over again when it came to teams with significant interest in Nylander and that was the Carolina Hurricanes and it seems like the Hurricanes interest has not subsided in spite of the fact that the Leafs locked Nylander down to a long term deal at the deadline.

In a recent radio interview TSN National Hockey League insider Darren Dreger revealed that the Hurricanes continue to show interest in both Nylander and fellow Toronto Maple Leafs forward Kasperi Kapanen, something that would make sense given the offensive pieces the Hurricanes lost over this most recent summer. 

“Yeah, Donnie Waddell, the general manager there, is hungry,” said Dreger as per Nichols on Hockey. “He’s talked openly about how they need to acquire scoring, yet they moved Jeff Skinner and they moved [Elias]  Lindholm and there’s two players who are pretty offensive-minded.

“And then subsequently you’ve got ownership, Tom Dundon, in Carolina talking about how he doesn’t covet or value high-end defense when he’s going into a draft. So there’s a lot of big question marks beside the Carolina Hurricanes.

“But I do see that Waddell and the Canes are going to be busy. And I think we’re going to continue to link the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Carolina Hurricanes. We know that the Hurricanes were interested in William Nylander, and are interested in Kasperi Kapanen.”

This would lead you to believe that the Hurricanes would still very much like to acquire one of these players in the new year and given the needs of the Maple Leafs on the blue line, as well as Carolina's significant depth at that position, there may still very well be a fit here. Now I think it's very safe to say that Kapanen would be the player the Leafs would be most comfortable trading, and there have been 2 names from the Hurricanes roster that have come up again and again when linked to the Leafs.

At the time of the Nylander trade we kept hearing the names of Hurricanes blue liners Brett Pesce and Justin Faulk and you have to believe that those would remain Toronto's targets if any deal of this nature were to materialize.