After weeks of speculation, predictions and questions, it's finally happening - Evander Kane is going to undergo surgery for his sports hernia issue. The news was reported by Sportsnet's Mark Spector, who advised the procedure will take place in the next 10 days or so.
The prognosis for Kane's rehab and recovery period will understandably not be any clearer, until after the surgery. Given that we are now halfway through September, this leads to the question of why the Oilers waited until now him to go under the knife, give that the issue lingered throughout last season?
There have been several theories regarding this, with one being the hope that the sports hernia issue would just resolve itself with rest and recovery. By extension, this had led to the unanswered question about if this was the preference of the player, the team, or both?
Oilers apparently wanted to move Kane
We also have to factor in the recent speculation, that the Oilers were attempting to persuade Kane to remove his no movement clause. The thinking was that the team wanted to trade him, to get his remaining two years times $5.125 million salary off their books.
Pending the accuracy of this, it would appear the 33-year-old declined to help facilitate a trade. This makes sense given that it has been repeatedly remarked that he enjoys living in Edmonton, and for the first time in his NHL career he finally feels settled.
With the apparent stalemate between the two sides, the prevailing belief is that the Oilers would now like to place Kane on Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTIR). This could create some temporary cap relief, to help a team with just $945,833 available for the 2024-25 season at the time of writing.
No easy solution per se
However, this isn't a straightforward scenario, as general manager Stan Bowman explained last month. As per Sportsnet, Bowman said: "Either he’s going to be off LTIR and just part of your normal team capture or, if he is going to be out for longer than 24 days and 10 games, he can go on long-term injury but you need, as a team, to be able to activate him when he returns from that injury. So, that’s something that came into a lot of our discussions, was, ‘You may be able to start the season in long-term injury if that’s the case and he’s going to be out at least a month, but we have to have a gameplan for when he’s healthy and ready to play."
There is one extravagant theory, which has the Oilers somehow keeping Kane on LTIR for the entire 2024-25 season, then activating him for the beginning of the playoffs. Depending on the feasibility of such a strategy, the team could then utilize his entire $5.125 million salary elsewhere.
In an ideal world though, the Oilers should surely want the 2009 fourth draft pick back in their lineup. When he's healthy, he is one of the best forwards on the team, someone who combines excellent talent and much-needed physicality; he's also extremely annoying and distracting to opponents.
Ultimately, it is not clear why there was a delay in Kane undergoing surgery and we may never know; in addition, we appreciate there will be those who disagree with said delay, and vice versa. Regardless, the surgery is now happening and it will be interesting to see how the situation plays out in the coming weeks and months.