SHARKS ACQUIRE FIREPOWER FOR PUSH
ST. PAUL, Minn. — With Patrick Marleau in Toronto and Joe Thornton sidelined by a right-knee injury, the Sharks have made a trade to bring in some muchneeded scoring punch at forward.
The Sharks acquired forward Evander Kane in a trade with the Buffalo Sabres on Monday for a conditional 2019 first-round draft pick, a 2019 conditional fourth-round pick and forward Danny O’Regan.
Kane, the fourth overall pick of the 2009 draft (Atlanta) is a four-time 20-goal scorer who’s only 26 years old. He has 20 goals and 21 assists in 61 games this season.
On the surface, the move seems to fly in the face of general manager Doug Wilson’s stated approach to the trade deadline. Throughout the season, the Sharks general manager said he wasn’t planning to give up any top picks or prospects for short-term rentals. But Kane’s plummeting value in the hours leading up to Monday’s trade deadline made the deal more palatable.
Kane, who has collected 40 points (20g, 20a) in 61 games this season, is a pending unrestricted free agent. At this point, the Sharks haven’t signed Kane to a long-term contract extension.
According to TSN’s Pierre LeBrun, the condition on the first-round pick that the Sharks sent to Buffalo hinges on whether Kane re-signs with the team. Assuming Kane signs a deal with the Sharks, the Sabres will receive San Jose’s top pick in the 2019 NHL draft. If Kane leaves the Sharks as a free agent, the Sabres get San Jose’s second-round pick instead.
Although Wilson framed the possibility of chasing rental players as unlikely, he had left the door open to the possibility of a deal if the price were right. That appears to be the case in the Kane deal.
If Kane signs elsewhere in the offseason, the Sharks will have acquired his services for the stretch run, and potentially, the Stanley Cup playoffs, without giving up a first-round pick or an up-andcoming roster player, such as Timo Meier, Kevin Labanc and Joakim Ryan. The prospect the Sharks parted with, O’Regan, failed to earn head coach Pete DeBoer’s confidence, spending the season moving up and down between the NHL and AHL.
O’Regan collected five points in 22 NHL games with the Sharks. He won the AHL’s rookie of the year award with the Barracuda last season, compiling 58 points in 63 games.
The price tag on Kane proved to be reasonable considering that the Boston Bruins gave up a 2018 first-round pick, a 2019 seventh-round pick, a prospect and two roster players to acquire Rick Nash from the New York Rangers on Sunday.
Winnipeg gave up a conditional 2018 first-round pick, a conditional 2020 fourth-round pick and a prospect for St. Louis Blues center Paul Stastny. Nashville gave up a 2018 first-round pick, a 2018 fourth-round pick and a prospect for Chicago’s Ryan Hartman.
The cost of acquiring Kane likely dropped because of the characters issues that plagued him earlier in his career.
Winnipeg traded Kane to Buffalo in 2015 after he violated a team dress code by showing up to a morning workout wearing a tracksuit. Jets defenseman Dustin Byfuglien later threw the tracksuit into the shower, causing Kane to miss a team meeting and skip out on their game later that night.
During his first-full season in Buffalo, Kane was accused of sexual assault for an alleged incident on Dec. 27, 2015, but he didn’t face any charges after an investigation failed to produce evidence of wrongdoing.
Controversy surrounding Kane surfaced again this season when he got into a heated argument with defenseman Justin Falk at a Sabres practice in January. According to local reporters, Falk shoved Kane and called him “selfish”, a label that has followed Kane throughout his nineyear NHL career.
Nevertheless, acquiring Kane could fit Wilson’s definition for being a deal that works “for now and in the future.” Reporters in Buffalo insist that Kane’s alleged character issues are overblown.
Kane reached the 30-goal mark with the Jets during the 2011-12 season and he ranked second among all NHL players in goals over a 12-month span from December 2016 to December 2017.
Kane is a good fit for the Sharks, giving the team speed and scoring punch on the left wing in the wake of Marleau’s departure to the Toronto Maple Leafs in free agency last summer. The Sharks entered Monday’s action ranked 17th in goals per game (2.83) and 24th in five-on-five goals (111).
The team recently completed a fourgame road trip through the Central Division with a 1-2-1 record, holding a onepoint lead over the Anaheim Ducks for second place in the Pacific Division and a three-point edge over the Blues, the Western Conference’s ninth-place team.