Deadline deal a shot in the arm
Sharks acquire high-scoring Kane from Sabres to boost offense
ST. PAUL, MINN. >> With Patrick Marleau in Toronto and Joe Thornton sidelined by a rightknee injury, the Sharks swung a deal 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 prospect 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 20 assists in 61 games this season, but he’s yet to suit up for a Stanley Cup playoff game in nine NHL seasons.
“This is a great opportunity,” said Kane, who will make his Sharks debut at SAP Center tonight. “Excitement probably doesn’t do enough justice to how I feel. I’m looking forward to having the opportunity of possibly playing in the playoffs, and hoping to add as much as I can to that
group, help get us in there and hopefully go on a long run.”
On the surface, the move appears to fly in the face of General Manager Doug Wilson’s stated approach to the trade deadline. Throughout the season, the Sharks’ executive said he wasn’t planning to give up any top picks or prospects for potential shortterm rentals, such as Kane, who’s a pending-unrestricted free agent.
But Kane’s plummeting value in the hours leading up to Monday’s trade deadline made the deal more palatable.
According to Wilson, the condition on the firstround pick that the Sharks sent to Buffalo hinges on whether Kane re-signs with the team. Assuming Kane signs an extension 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 will get San Jose’s secondround pick instead unless the squad wins the Stanley Cup this season. The pick is lottery protected, so if the Sharks miss the playoffs this spring, it will turn over to next season.
The condition on the fourth-round pick allows the Sharks to push it back to a 2020 third-round pick if they so choose.
“I go back to the skillset that he brings and the age that he brings, so he does bring the ingredients that fit for now and the future,” Wilson said. “The way the (trade) is structured allows us to have flexibility for him to get to know us and us to get to know him.”
Both Kane and Wilson said they’ve yet to discuss the possibility of a contract extension beyond this season. Wilson is looking at the summer as a pivotal offseason for the Sharks, who have more than $20 million available in cap space.
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 trade.
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-and-coming 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 shuffling 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 24-year-old also scored 50 points in 41 games at Boston University in 2014-15 while skating on a line with Sabres star Jack Eichel.
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.
The cost of acquiring
Kane likely dropped because of the character 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 reports, Falk shoved Kane and called him “selfish,” a label that has followed Kane throughout his nineyear NHL career.
Kane says the drama — alleged or real — is behind him.
“We’re not talking about last week or last month, we’re going back to a number of years ago. I’ve grown up a lot since then. I’ve moved on from it,” he said. “If you asked any of my teammates in Buffalo, there’d be nothing but good things to say. For me, it’s not a concern.”
Wilson isn’t concerned about Kane’s checkered past.
“Evander would admit that he’s grown up and matured,” he said. “He’s 26 now. He’s a man. He wants to be a great player, dominant player in this league. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not sure if we were all perfect angels when we were 20 or 21.”
The Sharks general manager said Joe Pavelski, who played with Kane on Dynamo Minsk in the KHL during the 2012-13 lockout, and Brent Burns, who skated with him on Team Canada at the 2010 and 2011 IIHF World Championships, both endorsed his character.
“This is not an unknown,” Wilson said. “We think this is a really good tight group with great leadership that brings out the best in people.”