Do the Edmonton Oilers need Zack Kassian anymore?

Ever since Evander Kane came to the Edmonton Oilers, I think it’s worth asking if Zack Kassian is now best classified as redundant.

After all, Kassian has regressed into a bottom six forward who hasn’t put up even 10 goals or 30 points in two seasons. He’s improved upon his totals from last season but that’s not saying much, seeing as how the bar was so low last season in all his boxcars – games played, goals, and assists. Seriously, look it up.

The last couple of seasons Kassian seems to have developed what I call “Dustin Penner syndrome” – he’ll be great for game or two, and then disappear for weeks at a time. He still hits, I guess, and is a pest at times, but even that is dampened by the fact that Kane can also do both as well.

After all, if you look at the aforementioned list, while Kassian is second on the team in hits, which is admirable, Kane is already fifth on the team in hits, and has been here almost half the time Kassian has. In fact, if you project out Kane’s 91 hits over 27 games you’d get 276 hits over 82 games. That might be stretch considering that the all-time record for hits in a single season is 382, but that’s still impressive. Meanwhile, Kassian’s current projections would be 233 over a full 82 game season.

Personally I’ve also seen Kane be a pest to the opposition much more than Kassian this season. In almost half the games (I really can’t stress that enough).

The reason we ask this question now is because up until the end of this season we’ll have the luxury of time. Kane’s cheap deal gave us the cap space to have both players on the roster.

However, if you look past this season the Edmonton Oilers won’t have the cap space to re-sign Kane unless they trade Kassian, preferably at full cap hit.

While it’s true that the Edmonton Oilers will have $4.4 million of cap space if they let Archibald, Turris, and Russell walk after this season as expected, they also need to re-sign key players in Puljujarvi, Yamamoto, and McLeod, as well as Kane.

The Oilers can probably give modest raises to all three of the first three aforementioned players but there’s no way they can afford to keep both Kane and Kassian.

There’s also the fact that although Holland did re-sign Kassian, that was before there was an internal option to replace him on the roster, and Kassian was originally a Chiarelli pickup. Every GM likes to stock the team with his own players – with certain exceptions of course. There’s a reason why guys like McDavid and Draisaitl survive GM changes here just like Crosby and Malkin did in Pittsburgh and Barkov and Huberdeau did in Florida.

So all in all, here’s the situation (and I’m not talking about a character on Jersey Shore….). The Edmonton Oilers have a choice between an underachieving, inconsistent, overpaid bottom six forward in Kassian or a top six forward in Kane who has proven he can do everything Kassian can do only better – not to mention he’s a year younger and was picked up by the current GM, while Kassian was picked up by the previous GM.

I don’t know about you, but IMO Kassian has the worst contract on the team right now. It would behoove them to trade it in the offseason, then use the cap space to re-sign Kane.

As for where he could land? Well, my colleague on this site has already delved into that.