An NHL team wants to give Kane a shot
THERE is credible chatter reaching Slap Shots that an Eastern Conference team has shown considerable interest in dealing for Evander Kane, the Sharks winger who on Nov. 30 is due to come off his 21-game suspension for violating NHL/ NHLPA COVID-19 protocols, and no, it’s not the Rangers.
Kane, who has faced myriad personal issues throughout his career, was suspended for “an established violation of, and lack of compliance with, the NHL/NHLPA COVID-19 protocol” after being investigated by the league for falsifying his vaccination status. That is not some benign error or oversight. Kane’s current vaccination status is unknown. Of course, Kane apologized for his “mistake.”
The 30-year-old Kane, whose contract, at a $7 million average annual value, runs through 2024-25, led the Sharks with both 22 goals and 49 points last season while alienating multiple teammates. That has been standard operating procedure throughout his career for the winger. He is enmeshed in a poisonous relationship with his estranged wife, Anna Kane, who in September accused him of sexual assault and domestic violence. Both parties have been granted domestic violence restraining orders against one another.
The Sharks are believed willing to pick up half of the cap hit and money on the contract in order to move the winger, who would, from a talent standpoint, fit into just about any team’s top six. But good luck to the guys in his new room.
And good luck on a PR basis to the club that might take the risk and acquire him. Who wouldn’t want to buy their kids the authentic jersey of a guy who was inauthentic about his vaccination status? ➤ Forget about an outbreak over here, what happens if multiple NHL players test positive for COVID-19 at the Beijing Games and are forced to quarantine in China for three weeks and then for at least another week upon their return to North America while the NHL season resumes?
Yes, withdrawing from the Olympics would no doubt represent a bitter disappointment for the NHL’s 150 players or so who dream of, and would have the opportunity to seek, gold. But is this really the year for it? Plus, Slap Shots has been told that Team USA, at least, expects players to decline invitations to participate. ➤ Cammi Granato, Hockey Hall of Fame player, equal-rights and union activist, and scout for the Kraken, was last week named to the 18-person Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee, and it strikes me that she is compiling one of the great hockey careers and résumés of all time.
So Alex Ovechkin , up to 18 goals in 21 games following Friday’s hat trick and at 748 overall and counting — tick, tick, tick on Wayne Gretzky’s 894 — is kind of the real eighth wonder of the world, isn’t he? ➤ From Page Six: Which retired player, honored by his former team in a pregame ceremony, angrily accosted a member of the club’s upper management because a friend of his had been a healthy scratch for the match and was thus unavailable to pose with him in uniform during the pregame festivities? ➤ You think the idea of putting a TV reporter between the benches was a recent revolutionary development?
Well, in Game 4 of the 1974 semifinals when a drive by the Rangers’ Dale Rolfe struck Barry Ashbee in the right eye and thus ended the Philadelphia defenseman’s career, TV reporter Brian McFarlane not only went onto the ice (!) while Ashbee was being attended to and put on a stretcher, he actually got a comment from lineman Matt Pavelich about what had happened.
Imagine the league allowing that now.
And, thanks again, YouTube, I didn’t realize until last week, when I caught the Islanders’ clinching Game 5 of the 1980 quarterfinals against Boston, that Mike Bossy had used his left hand while going through the handshake line after missing the first three games of that series and the final two of the preliminary round against Los Angeles with what I will go out on a limb and say was a right-hand injury.
No wonder No. 22 could only score nine goals in 14 games after rejoining the lineup. ➤ Let’s check into the wild and wacky remnants of the fondly remembered Canadian division.
Surely not wishing ill will on anyone during the holiday season, but Elias Pettersson is without a five-on-five goal through the first 21 games of the season, the Canucks have six victories, are in 28th place overall and both general manager Jim Benning and head coach Travis Green still have their jobs?
You’re a better person than I if you can figure out just what the Canadiens are doing riding it out with lame-duck general manager Marc Bergevin in place.
The Habs, who through no fault of their own have played without Carey Price and Shea Weber for the duration and through much fault of their own are 30th overall, at 5-15-2, heading into Saturday, and the man without a contract beyond this season has the responsibility to look after the future? ➤ Pretty bush-league look Wednesday night in New Jersey when the Devils’ match against Minnesota was delayed for about a half-hour because the Wild’s bus got caught in a massive Thanksgiving Eve traffic jam because of an accident at the Holland Tunnel while trying to make it from Manhattan to Newark.
Apparently the Wild management did not realize that there are actual hotels and everything in New Jersey, even though their GM, Billy Guerin, spent many a night confined to a hotel room in Teaneck during the playoffs through his fiveplus years as a Devil. Or maybe he blocked that out of his mind. ➤ That Henrik Lundqvist guy, he has sure disappeared since retiring, hasn’t he? Finally, don’t look now, but what in the world are Bill Mikkelson and Neil Nicholson doing lining up as a defense pair for the Islanders?