Vancouver Canucks: Revisiting Evander Kane trade rumors
By Alex Hoegler
The Evander Kane and Vancouver Canucks rumours refuse to go away, and there’s more speculation that the flashy winger may be traded this offseason.
It wouldn’t be a Vancouver Canucks offseason without pundits linking them to bringing home Buffalo Sabres forward Evander Kane.
The Vancouver native has seen his name pop on in the rumour mill aplenty since the Buffalo Sabres traded for him two years ago. Back in November, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman seemingly shot down the Canucks and Kane speculation once and for all:
"“The story is that they did call and there were some conversations and John Weisbrod, the assistant general manager of the Canucks, was on the scouting list on Thursday night in Buffalo, which sent us all to DEFCON one. The word is Vancouver was not willing to pay the price that Buffalo was asking. The Canucks said no and walked away from any potential trade.”"
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Ben Kuzma from the Vancouver Province also took a look at the pros and cons of acquiring Kane. He pointed out that Kane could have troubles fitting in a locker room that houses the tremendous leadership of Daniel and Henrik Sedin. Kane’s had plenty of troubles off the ice, including harassment charges.
TSN insider Bob McKenzie recently appeared on TSN1040 and noted that although there are teams interested in Kane, he’s unsure if the Canucks are among the clubs looking at him.
For what it’s worth, I also touched on this subject back in November. I noted that Kane will cost the rebuilding Canucks young assets, he’s extremely inconsistent (having scored just 20-plus goals three times), and the team is simply better off staying away from a player with off-the-ice problems.
Trade doesn’t make sense
Six months later, I still don’t see why the Canucks should acquire Kane. Yes, they need scoring — and perhaps Kane could fit nicely with the Sedin twins. But he’s one year away from unrestricted free agency.
Imagine this scenario. The Canucks give up one of their young defencemen and perhaps a draft pick for Kane. He plays with the Sedins and scores 30 goals. Now another team will pay him big bucks in free agency. Vancouver got one good year out of Kane and traded away two key pieces of their long-term future.
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And with all due respect to Kane, he’s not single-handedly going to take Vancouver from Western Conference basement to the playoffs.
Kane has also had the luxury of playing with young and skilled centres like Jack Eichel and Ryan O’Reilly. Playing with a 37-year-old Henrik Sedin is a downgrade of a linemate for Kane, so it’s hard to envision him scoring more in Vancouver than he did in Buffalo.
Conclusion
Folks can speculate about the Canucks acquiring the Vancouver native in Evander Kane all they want. At the end of the day, trading for Kane would come with plenty of more risks than rewards. Also, when’s the last time this team made a blockbuster trade or free agent signing that paid off?
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General manager Jim Benning has to play it safe and walk away. If he is bent on providing more offence for the Vancouver Canucks, then he should continue to do so through the draft.