After months of speculation, the Tomas Kaberle trade deadline is ten hours away as of press time.

Leaf fans have been eagerly anticipating word about whether the long time Leafs defenceman will be with another team on Monday morning or if he will still remain a member of the Leafs. Many fans and analysts strongly feel that it would be a mistake to keep Kaberle and let him go for nothing next off-season like Mats Sundin did a few years ago.

A lot of speculation has been made about what team Kaberle may be traded to, with HockeyBuzz's Eklund reporting that the San Jose Sharks are the leading candidate. I had the chance to ask Sharks GM Doug Wilson about these rumours. He told me that he was not able to comment due to club policy.

"My policy has always been to keep in confidence any conversation that I may have with fellow GM's," Wilson said. "We don't talk about other teams players that are under contract and we would expect other teams to adhere to this policy pertaining to our players."

I had the opportunity to ask Leafs GM Brian Burke how trade negotiations were going just a few minutes ago and what he felt the chances were that Tomas Kaberle would still be a Leaf come Monday morning. He told me it was still "too early to say."

What this likely means for Kaberle and Leaf fans is that the wait for a trade will likely go deep into the night and right up unto the eleventh hour.

Should Burke be unable to trade Kaberle before midnight, the defenceman's no trade clause once again kicks in and the Leafs GM would require permission from Kaberle to trade him.

On Friday I asked Kaberle's agent Rick Curran whether Kaberle would be willing to do that. He felt that was something that he and Kaberle would have to look at if it were the case on Monday.

"That is not the situation as of yet and wouldn't be appropriate to talk about," Curran said. "We'll wait things out and see where we are after the Sunday deadline and go from there."

Stay tuned to HockeyBuzz.com all day long as we will have up-to-the-minute coverage of the Tomas Kaberle trade deadline.

For up-to-the-minute Leafs news and updates, be sure to follow Ken Beckett on Twitter @KenBeckett

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