Rumors are swirling that the Toronto Maple Leafs may be trading William Nylander to the Calgary Flames, according to a popular hockey trade rumour website.
If the Toronto Maple Leafs were going to trade Nylander this offseason, wouldn’t it make sense for GM Brad Treliving to work with his former team?
First and foremost, he has a fantastic relationship with the brass in Calgary, but secondly, they have a piece (or two) the Leafs could use.
It would be a huge loss to the organization if Nylander was traded but after the moves Treliving has made, I can’t really see a scenario where he stays. The team is currently $8M over the salary-cap and unless they flip TJ Brodie and Matt Murray, or a combination of some other players, for virtually nothing, Nylander is going to be the odd-man out due to obscenely bad cap management.
The salary-cap is barely rising next year, despite billions of dollars being added to the NHL via expansion fees and television rights, so as a result, the Leafs will need to shed some salary-cap before the season starts.
Trading a 40-goal scorer is never a fun task, and its worth pointing out that there are few examples in NHL history of a team trading this caliber of player and coming out on top.
When you look at Toronto’s line-up, without Nylander, they’re stacked. Tyler Bertuzzi, Max Domi, John Tavares, William Nylander, Mitch Marner and Calle Jarnkrok are all former 20-goal scorers, while Matthew Knies could join that list next year.
Matthews and Marner alone are two of the best 10 players offensively in the NHL, so they’ll be fine.
Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Rumor Alert: Nylander to Calgary?
For the past seven years, the Leafs have never struggled scoring, but instead have been hurt defensively or in net. They haven’t had that number-one defenseman, so a trade with the Calgary Flames makes sense.
The one rumor floating around would be the following:
- Toronto Maple Leafs acquire: Noah Hanifin and Mikael Backlund (Calgary retains 50% of both)
- Calgary Flames acquire: William Nylander
The Flames desperately need a goal-scorer after Matthew Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau left, while the Leafs could use another top defenseman.
This trade wouldn’t clear all the salary-cap space necessary to stay cap-compliant but it would at least solve a Nylander issue and help bolster the blue-line.
In addition to Hanifin jumping into the top-four, if not top-two, with the Leafs, Backlund shouldn’t be slept-on either if he were involved in this trade. Personally, I’d be fine with going Hanifin for Nylander straight-up if they retained 50 percent because the money makes more sense, but it would be nice to have Backlund as well.
This is just a rumor, but don’t be surprised if it’s Calgary who wins the Nylander sweepstakes and brings him back to the city he was born in, if the Leafs can’t come to terms on a contract extension.