Canucks, Leafs interested in trading for Flames defencemen: report

The Calgary Flames are reportedly a very popular team when it comes to trade interest among other Canadian teams.

It was recently revealed that the Flames defenceman Nikita Zadorov has requested a trade from the team after his agent Dan Milstein tweeted out some concerns about how he was being used by new head coach Ryan Huska.

The Flames don’t appear to be in a rush to offload the 28-year-old, but new reports indicate that there is plenty of trade interest in him. During the latest Saturday Headlines segment on Hockey Night in Canada, Elliotte Friedman named both the Vancouver Canucks and Toronto Maple Leafs as teams who have high interest in acquiring either Zadorov or Chris Tanev, who also might be available.

“It is believed that Vancouver and Toronto are among the teams interested in Tanev and Zadorov if not both,” reported Friedman.

The interest makes sense for both teams. The Canucks have apparently been working the phones trying to find a trade to help the team capitalize on some early success this season. It also came out that Vancouver was shifting away from trading forward Conor Garland and was instead dangling forward Anthony Beauvillier.

Tanev in particular is an interesting option for Vancouver, as he had previously spent 10 seasons with the Canucks before signing with the Flames in 2020.

For the Maple Leafs, there seems to be some unease growing in the organization as they are not off to the hot start they wanted. New GM Brad Treliving has never been shy to make big moves to address weaknesses and as it stands the team is not getting good enough defence or goaltending.

Treliving would know both players very well from his time spent as the GM of the Flames. In fact, he was the man in charge when Calgary acquired both defencemen.

Though interest is high in these players, Friedman also reported that he doesn’t expect things to get resolved anytime soon.

“I think the Flames want to calm everything down so they can kind of reset the market,” said Friedman. “Nothing imminent.”

Zadorov and Tanev are both unrestricted free agents at the end of the season. This means a deal will have to get done before the NHL trade deadline on March 8.

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