OILERS’ EVANDER KANE TO HAVE SURGERY FOR SPORTS HERNIA IN ‘NEXT 10 DAYS OR SO’
It’s official: Evander Kane will have surgery for a sports hernia suffered last season.
While the time of the injury is still unknown, Kane opened up before the playoffs started, saying he had been dealing with it “all year.”
All signs pointed toward this scenario being the most likely outcome, but Sportsnet’s Mark Spector confirmed Friday evening Kane’s surgery was scheduled to take place within the next week and a half. There’s no timetable for how long his recovery could take.
Kane appeared in 77 regular season games last year for the Oilers, scoring 24 goals and 44 points, his lowest goal-per-game pace in six years and his lowest point-per-game pace in seven. The Oilers sat him out of the lineup for the final three games of the regular season, giving him a chance to rest before the playoffs.
He would play in 20 post-season games for the Oilers, scoring four goals and eight points, but seemed to reaggravate his injury in Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals against the Dallas Stars, laying a hit on one of their defencemen, Alex Petrovic. Questions swirled ahead and throughout the Stanley Cup Finals against the Florida Panthers about Kane’s availability, and while he would draw in for the first two games of the seven-game series, he played 15:22 and 10:33, missing the final five games of the series.
The Oilers clearly felt Kane wouldn’t be ready for the start of the season earlier this summer, putting themselves in a financial bind that allowed the St. Louis Blues to issue successful offer sheets to Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg.
Despite that, general manager Stan Bowman and Edmonton’s front office navigated things well, managing to pick up two other players via trade, defenceman Ty Emberson and winger Vasily Podkolzin, while also getting an additional draft pick and prospect from the Blues.
Kane will start the season on the Oilers cap-compliant roster, allowing them to accrue up to $4.4-million in cap space ahead of the trade deadline, but could be a candidate for the long-term injured reserve at any point. His landing there would take his $5.125-million cap hit off the books, freeing up even more money for the Oilers to make trade-deadline acquisitions.
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2024-09-14T00:05:16Z dg43tfdfdgfd