Not Good: Edmonton Oilers’ Evander Kane’s Recent Injury Gets Worse

The injury news update offered on Monday by Oilers Now Host and team color analyst Bob Stauffer on Evander Kane might complicate things for the Edmonton Oilers. While the immediate reaction might be that Kane having surgery and possibly finding his way to LTIR helps Edmonton do other things, that’s not entirely accurate.

Much of what the Oilers can do will depend on Kane’s status and the term of his LTIR stint.

LTIR Is Not Always a Free Pass

For the Oilers, having an immediate opening — in the value of Kane’s $5.125 million cap hit — gives the team a chance to sign Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway to new deals without much concern about going over the salary cap to start the 2024-25 season. Edmonton might even think of adding some depth at forward to replace Kane’s absent production. However, it’s not necessarily that simple.

First, if it is projected Kane will be out the entire regular season, that’s one thing. The Oilers can do what they want, hopefully getting the forward back in time for the playoffs when the cap hit doesn’t apply to the roster. But, if Kane is out for three to four months, the Oilers will need to get cap-compliant. Failing to do so will create major issues.

This means additional roster moves later in the season. Whether that be a trade, a demotion, or another injury to someone that gives Edmonton room to bring Kane back, when he’s cleared, room will need to be made.

Conflicting Reports on Kane’s Status

Complicating matters even further is the two conflicting reports within 48 hours of each other. While Stauffer is considered the more plugged-in of the two sources, according to the “2 Mutts Hockey Podcast”, Kane was to be ready by September for the Captain Skates. They were confident that LTIR was not the plan. This means someone is misinformed in their reporting.

Maybe Stauffer put a stop to the Kane speculation because of the 2 Mutts Podcast post. If the Oilers leaked a bit of a request to Stauffer to squash that speculation from gaining momentum (which is not unheard of), it means the Oilers don’t want fans or the league thinking Kane is totally fine. They may still be unsure of which direction they intend to go and plan to have Kane get the surgery he probably should have gotten early in the 2022-2023 season.