Alex Nylander's decade-long search for a permanent NHL home has a new stop: Calgary. Multiple hockey insiders are reporting the winger is set to attend Flames training camp on a professional tryout, betting his best AHL season in years turns into another crack at the big league.
Sounds like Alex Nylander will be coming to camp with the #Flames, likely on a PTO. 24G 53P in 65 AHL GP t.co/WOLU0PxO7L
The numbers backing this up are real. Nylander put up 24 goals and 53 points in 65 games for the Toronto Marlies last season, then kept producing in the playoffs — 6 goals and 24 games worth of work as the Marlies won the Calder Cup. That's the kind of season that gets a guy noticed again after bouncing around the league.
And bouncing around is putting it kindly. Buffalo took Nylander 8th overall in the 2016 draft, the same slot his brother William went two years earlier to Toronto. The pedigree was there, but the NHL stick never quite followed — stops in Chicago, Pittsburgh, Columbus and eventually Toronto never turned into a full-time job. A PTO with the Flames isn't a savior deal, it's a rebuilt resume finally worth a look.
Flames to sign Alex Nylander to PTO t.co/gHyBLo41mk
Calgary makes some sense as a landing spot. The Flames are a team still figuring out their forward group, and a PTO carries zero long-term risk while giving Nylander a real audition against NHL bodies in camp. If he shows the shot and playmaking that carried the Marlies to a title, a standard NHL contract could follow before the season starts.
For now it's just a camp invite, not a roster spot — PTOs get cut all the time. But for a former top-10 pick who's spent more of his career explaining what went wrong than showing what he can do, getting an NHL training camp locker at all is the story worth watching.