Kane wastes no time in signing 7-year deal
SAN JOSE » Evander Kane said early this month that the biggest priorities for any player seeking a long-term home were money, a chance to win and a comfortable lifestyle off the ice.
Kane believes he has found all three in the Bay Area.
Kane put pen to paper Thursday on a seven-year contract extension with the Sharks worth $ 49 million, ending his free agency before it began and making him the highest-paid forward on the team.
“I always wanted to stay in San Jose,” Kane said from Greece, where he is vacationing. “After the season, that thought never left my mind and I was happy we were able to get something done.”
According to capfriendly. com, Kane will make $9 million next season and $8 million in 2019-20 — with $5 million in signing bonuses spread between the two years. He will make $6 million in each of the last five years of the contract with another $7 million in signing bonus money distributed over that time.
The deal also includes a modified no-trade clause. Kane can choose three teams he’s willing to join in trade, according to Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic.
“It was a simple conversation and negotiation,” Sharks general manager Doug Wilson said. “All I really asked of Evander was, ‘Do you want to be a Shark?’ Not only was his answer yes, but his actions were.”
“It’s good to be wanted,” Kane said. “I wanted them just as much as they wanted me. The fact we were able to work out a deal so quickly reflects that.”
Kane, who turns 27 in August, was acquired at the trade deadline from Buffalo in exchange for prospect Danny O’Regan and two draft picks.
As a condition of the trade, by re-signing Kane, one of the draft picks is a No. 1 in 2019, although the pick is lottery-protected, meaning it can be moved to 2020. The pick would have been a No. 2 had the Sharks not re-signed Kane. The other pick the Sharks sent to Buffalo is a No. 4.
Kane had nine goals and five assists in 17 games with the Sharks; the team went 12- 6-1 after the trade and clinched a playoff spot. In the playoffs, his first, Kane had four goals and one assist in nine games. Overall, in 78 regular-season games, he had had 29 goals and 25 assists.
Kane was coming off a six-year deal worth $31.5 million that he signed with Winnipeg in 2012. Had he not signed with the Sharks by July 1, he would have become an unrestricted free agent. With speed and strength (at 6-2, 212 pounds) and 354 points in 574 NHL games, Kane would have been highly sought.
But after stops in Winnipeg and Buffalo — he had trouble in both locations — Kane found a home in San Jose.
“The one thing about this team, this group and this organization is they allow you to be yourself,” Kane said. “They embrace you for who you are and it’s a very unselfish group thatmakes it super-easy to come into and mesh well with.”
The contract, hefty considering Kane has had just one 30-goal season, is among the richest in fran- chise history and adds to a burgeoning Sharks payroll.
In the last 19 months, the team has signed defensemen Brent Burns and Marc-Edouard Vlasic to deals worth $64 and $56 million, respectively, and goalie Martin Jones to a six-year, $34.5 million contract.
The Kane contract was just one thing on Wilson’s offseason to- do list. There remains the issue of resigning Tomas Hertl and Chris Tierney, who will be restricted free agents, and getting a long-term deal for Logan Couture, who becomes an unrestricted free agent in July 2019.
Joe Thornton, who will become aUFA on July 1, has said he wants to return to San Jose, and captain Joe Pavelski, whose contract expires at the same time as Couture’s, could also be in line for a new deal.
With Kane, the Sharks have roughly $67 million tied up in 21 contracts for the 2018-19 season, according to capfriendly.com. The salary cap for next season is expected to be in the range of $78-82milllion, so Wilson’s chances of signing a big-name free agent, such as John Tavares of the New York Islanders, might be limited. Not so, said the GM. “We still have ample cap space,” Wilson said. “We still have some players, our own players, that I have some negotiations to do with. We’ll still have cap space after that.
“People know that we are always going to spend to the cap and are capable of doing that. We’ve repeated many times over that one of our jobs is to make it be a place that players want to play.”