Plenty of competition for Kane
East Vancouver native unlikely to join rebuilding Canucks
People need to pump the brakes on the assumption Evander Kane will automatically put the Vancouver Canucks at the top of his wish list should he make it to unrestricted free agency this summer.
There were plenty who figured the lure of playing in his hometown was going to bring Milan Lucic here two off-seasons ago when he had the opportunity to pick exactly where he wanted to go. Lucic valued the chance for long playoff runs above all else, felt the Edmonton Oilers offered him the best crack at that, and opted to sign a free agent deal there instead.
Last season it worked. This season has been something else entirely.
Kane, like Lucic, grew up in east Vancouver and became a star left-winger in junior with the Vancouver Giants. Kane, like Lucic, will undoubtedly chase playoff opportunities, assuming he doesn’t sign an extension with the team the Buffalo Sabres deal him to at the trade deadline and instead hits the open market.
The scuttlebutt is the Sabres, who were in town Thursday to face the Vancouver Canucks and are struggling near the bottom of the standings, will trade pending unrestricted free agent Kane, 26, to a contender by the Feb. 26 cut-off.
Athletes of his calibre are wired differently than most. They’re feverishly competitive, with precious few exceptions. Kane’s so competitive it can rub some the wrong way, and he’s been like that for some time.
For instance, he was a 15-yearold underage call-up for the Giants during the 2007 Memorial Cup national championship tournament. Underage call-ups generally go out of their way to be neither seen nor heard, but Kane punched Vancouver defenceman Brendan Mikkelson in the mouth after the then19-year-old Mikkelson got his stick into Kane’s hands on a one-on-one drill in practice and the two came to a stop in front of the net.
A couple years later, Kane was told he was ranked No. 3 among North American skaters by Central Scouting in its midseason report for the 2009 NHL Entry Draft.
Most would have been thrilled about that. Kane just wanted to know who was ranked ahead of him.
Heck, Kane grimaced initially Thursday when asked about Ty Ronning closing in on his Giants’ single-season goal-scoring record. Ronning is at 42 goals with 24 games left in the WHL regular season. Kane tallied 48 times for Vancouver in 2008-09.
Is that a guy who wants to be part of a continuing Canucks rebuild? Is that a guy who wants to be part of a rebuild in his hometown, where he’d have to deal with countless requests from family and friends and then listen to the lamenting that followed if the team wasn’t trending the right way soon enough?
Michael Buble doesn’t hold multiple concerts a year here, and Buble concerts generally draw better reviews than the Canucks have been getting.
Rest assured, Kane will get interest from teams further along in the development cycle than the Canucks if he makes it to free agency. He’s 6-foot-2, 212 pounds and can fly around the ice. He drives the puck to the net like there’s a magnet there.
For some team, he could be that last-piece-of-the-puzzle guy, that hard-charging, scoring winger who rounds out their top two lines.
He does come with baggage — there’s no denying that. There have been messy moments off the ice, including a June 2016 incident at a bar in Buffalo that led to charges and a court case. Kane will tell you it’s old news and, whether you believe that or not, we haven’t heard anything about him getting into legal trouble since. The charges were dismissed last May, the result of Kane avoiding legal issues for six months.
He’s had this pending trade from the Sabres and possible free agency hanging over him all season, and he’s continued to perform. He went into Thursday with 36 points, including 16 goals. He’s on pace for 61 points, which would be a career high.
Kane neatly danced around questions Thursday about possibly signing with the Canucks, saying he understood why it was being asked. He said, of course, that he wasn’t ready to make any decisions just yet.
He did admit he doesn’t completely block out the idea of pending free agency, though.
“It’s part of being a professional. It’s a position that every player wants to have,” Kane said. “I realize that it’s happening but, at the same time, we’re in-season and I’m excited about playing hockey and I enjoy playing hockey.
“I’ve talked to players who have gone through it before and lots of different things can happen. I guess it’s good to have options.
“Coming into this season, I knew what the situation was going to be like and I prepared for it. It’s been what I expected. There are a lot of factors that go into all this. You just trust the fact that everything will work itself out.”