On the Toronto Maple Leafs …
Chris Johnston of Sportsnet: William Nylander’s name potentially being available seems “completely asinine.”
Trading a 20-year old who scores and drives play doesn’t make sense after years of losing and looking for players like him. Johnston writes:
“Rest assured, Leafs fans, there is no reason to doubt the sanity of Brendan Shanahan, Lou Lamoriello and the other men pulling the levers in the executive suite.
Nylander isn’t going anywhere. Not before March 1. Not for a lot longer than that, barring some unforeseeable change of events.”
David Singh of Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on Sportsnet 590 on Toronto Maple Leafs, William Nylander and the recent trade speculation.
“Part of it is that somebody mentions him in a rumour, or the possibility of it, and people go crazy because there are so few rumours out there now,” Friedman said.
“Also, (Leafs coach Mike) Babcock at times has been blunt about how he hasn’t always been thrilled with some of the things that Nylander does out there. He’s got a little bit of (Alexei) Kovalev in him. Kovalev was an artist, a tremendous player and sometimes as great as he was, he did things that the team was like, ‘You know Alex, we wish you’d do it this way.’
“We’re very early in that phase between Nylander and Babcock,” Friedman added. “We’ll see where it goes. I don’t think they’re in a hurry to deal him. I just think sometimes his name gets mentioned once and everybody starts going crazy about it because they miss a good old-fashioned trade rumour.”