This past Thursday the rumours became reality – Evander Kane is part of the Edmonton Oilers for the rest of the season.
Through a complicated mathematical formula, it looks like the Kane deal – which includes a base salary plus a signing bonus – is worth $2,108,696. Check out the aforementioned link for CapFriendly next to Kane’s name for the formula if statistics are a passion of yours. To make room for him on the roster, the Edmonton Oilers have waived defensive specialist C/RW Colton Sceviour.
I’m going to make a bold statement here and say this is by far the riskiest deal in franchise history – more on that later in the blog.
It’s not so much the financials or the talent level of the player. He said all the right things in the press conference for those of you who didn’t watch it yet, but only time will tell if this roll of the dice is going to work.
After all, Kane has had a huge rap sheet that’s dogged him from early on in his NHL career. In his three previous stops in Buffalo, Winnipeg, and San Jose, there have been rumours of everything from serious crimes like illegal gambling, domestic abuse to forged vaccination credentials. Then there’s the more minor stuff – being a cancer in the locker room behind closed doors, showing up late for practices, conflicts with teammates.
In his defense, he alluded to seeing a therapist for the gambling, and it’s also worth noting that the domestic abuse allegations are likely false considering that Kane actually got custody of his kids in his divorce, something that a judge in divorce court would be unlikely to do if the allegations were actually true. He’s also been cleared of the charges of faking his vaccination card, which is what allowed the Oilers to sign him in the first place.
The media is a fickle beast. Sometimes things are reported that turn out to be false, and things that are true don’t turn up in the story. We’ve seen this several times in sports.
Personally, I wouldn’t have made this move if I were Ken Holland. After all, giving someone a second chance is one thing, but with Kane it’s more like a fourth or fifth chance. But, I’m not the GM of the Edmonton Oilers, Ken Holland is. He said in the aforementioned press conference for his part that he did due diligence on the player by talking to a lot of people before making the move.
Dr. Phil says that the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. Whether that’s true or not is up for debate, but there’s no question Kane comes to Edmonton with more baggage than a commercial airline flight.
The million dollar question, in the end, is this:
How will it all turn out for the team?
The way I see it, there’s only two possible ways this could go.