POLL: Is Evander Kane Worth The Risk?
By Adam Savard
The vultures have started circling Winnipeg as Evander Kane finds his name front and center in trade rumors. Would you want your team to trade for him?
Evander Kane being placed on injured reserve today is the latest news in what has been a whirlwind week for the Winnipeg Jets star. Normally an injury to a player of Kane’s caliber would be big news on a team competing for the playoffs but there is nothing normal about the last few days.
A healthy scratch turned into a meeting in a track suit. Said track suit apparently wound up in a shower. And Dustin Byfuglien wound up angry which can never end well for the man that makes Dustin Byfuglien angry. And the healthy scratch may not be so healthy as we may soon find out Kane is headed under the knife. The injury is thought to be a shoulder but GM Keven Cheveldayoff and head coach Paul Maurice may have a different opinion as to Kane’s upper-body injury.
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As a result of the injury it’s hard to see a scenario where Kane is moved at or prior to this years trade deadline. Teams just won’t give up assets to acquire a player that can’t help them. And if Evander Kane has a procedure to correct his injury he could easily be done for the season. But the offseason is a different story. Every team will have salary cap clarity and line of sight on the value of draft picks in a deep draft. That extra information will help the other twenty-nine teams determine whether they are interested in putting a package together for Kane.
Is Evander Kane worth the risk?
There isn’t a general manager in the league that wouldn’t be intrigued by the on-ice talent Kane is. He is 23 years old, has scored 30 goals in the league once and developed his two-way game. He is still growing as a player and may not yet be close to his ceiling. The opposite may also be true given this event and his penchant for taking pictures with large stacks of cash.
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The pictures shouldn’t be viewed as a big deal. Ok, Kane likes cash. Who doesn’t? He posts pictures with it. To this point he isn’t throwing it around nightclubs at 3am or finding himself in court accused of beating a woman like Slava Voynov. There is the appearance of maturity issues but that’s not terribly uncommon with a 23 year old. Granted there are higher expectations for Evander Kane because he is a professional athlete making, as the pictures show, a ton of cash. It’s going to be up to inquiring general managers how deep those concerns are and whether or not they harm his value or scatter potential trade partners completely.
More concerning that the off-ice behavior is the frequency he is actually off-ice. Though he played in all 48 games during the shortened season of 2012-13, Evander Kane has never played more than 74 games in a season, which he did during 2010-11. Kane missed 19 games in 2013-14 and has only played 37 of the Jets 53 games. Kane’s talent is only a benefit if he can stay on the ice and he has proven that’s a challenge for him.
Cheveldayoff is certainly going to field calls over the next three weeks about Evander Kane and will do so again as the draft approaches, only stopping after a clear decision is made about Kane’s future with the Jets. If I am a general manager I want to know what it takes to make this deal happen, particularly if my team is a contender. A solid locker room has the potential to make a great impact on Kane and address his perceived maturity issues.
If those issues have run as deep in the locker room as they appear two things are now clear. First, Byfuglien was right to address it as a leader of the Jets. While his method could be debated the message he is sending needs no translation: follow the rules, be part of us or play elsewhere. Which leads me to the second thing: it is highly unlikely Evander Kane starts next season as a Winnipeg Jet.
That could be the best thing for all involved.