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The Toronto Maple Leafs have a relatively light schedule this week, as they will travel to Manitoba to face the Winnipeg Jets on Wednesday and host last year’s Western Conference finalist in a rematch at Scotiabank Arena on Saturday.
Kyle Dubas is taking advantage of the brief lull, as the Leafs GM travelled to New York City on Sunday and was taking in the Rangers-Flames game at Madison Square Garden.
TSN’s Pierre LeBrun reported on Monday that Manhattan-based agent Lewis Gross was also at the game and insider
Darren Dreger indicated that Dubas was seen to talking to the agent for restricted free agent William Nylander before the game.
The meeting with Gross appears to be a follow up to the Leafs GM’s sojourn to Switzerland last week to speak face-to-face with Nylander and father Michael, in hopes of generating some momentum to the stalled contract talks.
There has been no movement from either side on terms for a long-term contract extension, which may be moving both sides towards a compromise on a short-term bridge, but it is unknown whether both sides will be just as inflexible on the price point on a two-or-three year deal.
Sportsnet’s
Chris Johnston confirmed that the two sides will be meeting in New York on Monday, which may be a sign of progress towards a resolution to the month-long impasse, but if there is not any movement towards a deal being struck in the coming days, the chances of the Leafs exploring trade options will increase.
There is some evidence that the possibility of a trade is increasing. Four teams had multiple scouts at last week’s Leafs-Kings game, including the Rangers and Carolina Hurricanes, who both have a large amount of cap space to accommodate the reported Nylander demand of a long-term deal in the $8 Million range, the need for a young top scoring forward and the pieces that Toronto may be looking for in return for the 22-year-old winger.
New York GM Jeff Gorton is unlikely to be willing to move young defenseman Brady Skjei, who signed a six-year, $31.5 Million extension this summer, but veteran Kevin Shattenkirk might be the right fit for the Leafs need to bolster the right side of the blueline.
Shattenkirk, 29, is in the second year of a four-year, $26.65 Million deal with the Rangers and had 23 points in an injury-shortened campaign. With New York in the process of a rebuild, they may be looking to move out experienced quality veterans like the former All-Star and pending UFA’s Kevin Hayes and Mats Zuccarello for younger players, but a potential deal for Nylander would have to include more in return (possibly a big winger like former Hobey Baker winner Jimmy Vesey) and/or possibly retaining some of Shattenkirk’s $6.65 Million salary to make the deal beneficial for both clubs.
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The Toronto Marlies have struggled in goal and defensively this season and have been calling in reinforcements to help the struggling club.
The Marlies brought in veterans Kyle Cumiskey and Ryan Sproul to professional tryout contracts to fill a temporary void, but on Monday the club signed former Leaf Frankie Corrado to a one-year AHL contract.
Corrado was acquired by Toronto off of waivers from Vancouver in October 2015 and spent most of his 17 months in the Leaf organization as a healthy scratch because he was not waiver exempt. The 25-year-old was swapped to Pittsburgh in the Eric Fehr deal in March 2017 and spent most of his playing time with their AHL affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre before suffering a torn ACL last February.
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