Two teams appear to be late favorites in potential Nylander trade.

Two teams may be emerging as favorites.

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HockeyFeed
Published 5 years ago
Two teams appear to be late favorites in potential Nylander trade.
Joel Marklund/Bildbyran/Zuma

We're now well into the month of November and the Toronto Maple Leafs still have not worked out a new deal for restricted free agent forward William Nylander. The trade talk surrounding Nylander has already been fairly rampant over the past several weeks but it appears to be reaching a fever pitch as we enter the final few weeks in which the Leafs can still sign Nylander.

Sportsnet insider Elliotte Friedman has reported that the two sides have hit a "roadblock" in negotiations and based on the comments from Friedman it sounds like this is a rather major roadblock at that. Earlier in the week Sportsnet's Rory Boylen listed five potential trade destinations that would make sense for Nylander and these five appeared at the time to be the clear front runners for a Nylander trade. The 5 teams are the Carolina Hurricanes, Anaheim Ducks, Los Angeles Kings, Philadelphia Flyers and Minnesota Wild. 

Now any of those teams could be a realistic trade destination for Nylander and the Maple Leafs but based on some activity later in the week we may be able to narrow down that list of five teams down to just two. On Friday Michael Augello of the professional hockey writers association reported that Carolina Hurricanes assistant general manager Rick Dudley was spotted scouting the Thursday night match up between the aforementioned Maple Leafs and the New Jersey Devils. Additionally, although Augello did not name which members of the Flyers organization were on hand, it appears that the Flyers also had scouts in attendance for that very same game. 

In the case of the Carolina Hurricanes it has been widely reported that the Maple Leafs have interest in both defensemen Brett Pesce and Justin Faulk so it would be no surprise to see a trade there, but the Flyers have only recently come to the forefront as a potential trading partner for the Leafs. Friedman mentioned that the Flyers were a "stealth possibility" for a Nylander trade and Boylen believes that Shayne Gostisbehere, Travis Sanheim, Philippe Myers, and Robert Hagg could all be players targeted by the Maple Leafs in a potential trade deal.

The Leafs face off against the Boston Bruins on Saturday and you can bet that there will be a great deal of attention paid to what happens on the ice, as well as in the crowd, on Saturday night. 

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