A look into Evander Kane’s early season issues, the impact of Connor McDavid’s absence for the Edmonton Oilers and an epic media fail.
Evander Kane is one of, if not the, best power forwards in the league. No question about it. However, he has been a bit slow out of the gate for the Oilers to start the season.
Bruce McCurdy of the Edmonton Journal likes to sound the hyperbole alarm, asking if Kane is starting the slow decline as other power forwards that have played for the Oilers. These include Milan Lucic, Zack Kassian, and James Neal. (Although the latter player I’d classify more as a finesse player than a power forward. Not sure what McCurdy was thinking there.)
The eye test says that Kane was starting to get his legs back against Winnipeg, but he has been demoted to the third line right now to go against easier competition as he does so.
In his defence, so was Connor Brown, and likely for the same reason. McCurdy trots out nonsensical advanced stats to defend his point of view, but never seems to point to the injury as the reason why.
Nor does McCurdy even entertain the idea that he can chalk it up to an aberration of the injuries from last season and that he can’t tell the future anymore than anyone else. So it’s incredibly arrogant of him to trot out his advanced stats, as justification for a future he can’t see and doesn’t know about anymore than anyone else.
How do you know that the injuries suffered last season aren’t having temporary lingering effects this season? You don’t. Only time will tell.
Rather than sound the alarm so early in the season, why not let Kane play the games and prove one way or the other?
If he’s still having speed issues when we’re at the March portion of this season, then we can push the panic button. Until then, there’s no reason for McCurdy to whip the fanbase into a frenzy and panic them into spilling stupidity on the internet.
I don’t know if Kane is starting to permanently slow down, or if he’s just working through the major injuries he suffered and his current slowness is just a bump in the road onto normal health a bit later on in the season. However, I refuse to be alarmist and declare the worst now, like McCurdy. This just reeks of irresponsible reporting.
Part of the reason Oiler fans drink the stupid juice so badly is in part — again, just in part — because the media drops bird droppings like this once in awhile. However, at least I’m willing to keep an open mind and give Kane a chance to prove one way or the other. McCurdy meanwhile, has already condemned him to the dustbin of Oilers history, which is just wrong.