New frontrunners emerge for Timo Meier!

One of the biggest fish on the trading market officially found his new home earlier this week, as former Vancouver Canucks captain Bo Horvat was sent to the New York Islanders in a blockbuster trade that sent Anthony Beauvillier, Aatu Räty and a conditional first-round pick in 2023 back to Vancouver. 

Meanwhile, now-former St. Louis Blues forward Vladimir Tarasenko is now in the Big Apple, having been dealt to the New York Rangers. 

And now, the eyes of the hockey world are turning their attention to the status of San Jose Sharks forward Timo Meier, who is himself a pending unrestricted free agent at this season's end. Will he be the next major domino to fall in NHL trade talks? 

According to TSN hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun, the Carolina Hurricanes and New Jersey Devils have Meijer on their radar, and a deal could happen sooner than later. 

"Yeah, decent chance of that," LeBrun said of Meier being dealt sooner rather than later. "Listen, the amount of interest in Timo Meier continues to escalate. And that's just going to continue now with Tarasenko off the board. And the sense from talking to people around the league today was that the Sharks don't necessarily have to wait to March 3 to get this done here and there's a couple reasons for that. One is that if an extension has to be part of this, and (Meier's) agent Claude Lemieux has to be part of this, you want to do this a few days before March 3. But the other reason is there is so much interest in Timo Meier that the Sharks have a pretty good gauge of the market.

"Among the teams that were reported before: New Jersey [Devils] and Carolina [Hurricanes], they remain very interested. But there are several teams that have shown interest. Bottom line here with Timo Meier is that I don't think this is a March 3 trade. I think this is going to happen before then."

The NHL Trade Deadline is March 3. Will Meier be on the move before then?