Perry Nelson-USA TODAY Sports
The Edmonton Oilers threw a hail mary on Thursday in the hopes of saving their rapidly dwindling season, with the team expected to sign UFA winger Evander Kane for the remainder of the year.
On the ice, Kane has 264 goals and 242 assists in 769 regular season games, including a San Jose Sharks-leading 49 points in 56 games last season.
But off the ice, that’s where the story really starts to get deeper.
Since making his debut with the now-defunct Atlanta Thrashers back in 2009, Kane has managed to put up good numbers – but while also bringing controversy everywhere he’s gone.
Back in 2015, Kane was sent out of town by the Winnipeg Jets shortly after arriving late to a meeting in violation of the team’s dress code, causing then-Jets teammate Dustin Byfuglien to throw Kane’s tracksuit in the shower in order to send a message.
So, having been booted from the organization that drafted him, Kane then headed to Buffalo, where he quickly got into an altercation with then-Sabres teammate Justin Falk after injuring Zach Bogosian in practice, which led to Falk calling Kane a “selfish [expletive]”.
A little over a month later, Kane was then shipped to San Jose, where his promise to not openly fight with his teammates earned him a seven-year extension that ultimately aged like milk.
Three years into that deal, Kane’s teammates had reached the point where they began using their exit meetings to beg Sharks management not to let him return to the team the following year. This, mind you, occurred before Kane violated the NHL’s COVID-19 protocols in September by submitting a fake vaccination card despite being told to stay home from Sharks training camp, earning him a 21-game suspension from the league during which Kane’s teammates went out of their way to affirm that they were not speaking to him.
And now, shortly after violating COVID-19 protocols for a second time this season – this time in the AHL – Kane will enter an Oilers locker room that is seemingly on the brink of collapse, with the team currently sitting near the bottom of a Pacific Division thought to be the weakest in all of hockey, despite employing the two top point-getters in the entire league.
