East Notes: Glendening, Rangers, Nylander

Red Wings center Luke Glendening was linked to the Maple Leafs towards the trade deadline as the team was seeking fourth line center help and head coach Mike Babcock is certainly familiar with him from his own time in Detroit.  However, MLive’s Ansar Khan notes that former Toronto GM Lou Lamoriello wasn’t as enamored with the 29-year-old which was why they were only offering up a late-round pick for his services.

With the Leafs still not quite set at that fourth line center spot – rookie Par Lindholm appears to be an early contender for the position, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Red Wings circle back to see if new Toronto GM Kyle Dubas would be willing to offer a bit more now.  Red Wings GM Ken Holland has acknowledged that they may need to clear a little bit of payroll off their books and moving Glendening – who has three years left with an AAV of $1.8MM – should allow them to get under the Upper Limit regardless of Henrik Zetterberg’s situation while filling a need on Toronto as well.

Elsewhere out East:

• After being active near the trade deadline last season, NBC Sports’ Adam Gretz suggests that the Rangers may be a team to watch for on the trade front again in 2018-19. New York has a pair of notable forwards that are slated to be unrestricted next summer in winger Mats Zuccarello and center Kevin Hayes and with the team firmly committed to a rebuild, those two could very well be on the move in the coming months.
• Maple Leafs winger William Nylander remains unsigned and is the most prominent restricted free agent remaining on the market. In an appearance on the Steve Dangle podcast (video link), Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston suggested that it may still be a few more weeks before a deal gets done.  He viewed the opening of training camp (September 13th) as an artificial deadline to get something done and that it’s certainly possible that it could go a day or two beyond that as well.  Nylander’s case has been well documented already and it will be interesting to see if Toronto can reach a long-term agreement or if they opt for a bridge deal to keep his cap hit down in the short-term.