Sharks express disappointment in Evander Kane: “He put himself in this situation”

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MONTREAL – San Jose Sharks coaches and players expressed their disappointment Tuesday in Evander Kane for violating the NHL’s COVID-19 protocols and would not say whether he would be welcomed back inside the team’s dressing room.

The NHL on Monday suspended Kane for 21 games without pay for submitting a fake COVID-19 vaccination card, meaning the forward won’t be eligible to play again until San Jose’s Nov. 30 game in New Jersey against the Devils.

“We’re all disappointed in how he handled that,” coach Bob Boughner said Tuesday at Bell Centre, where the Sharks begin a five-game road trip against the Canadiens. “The organization’s disappointed, but it’s something that’s happened and we can’t change it. We’ve got to move on. We’ve got a job to do.”

The Sharks have six weeks to determine how they want to handle Kane‘s situation, as uncomfortable as it might be.

“He put himself in this situation,” Sharks defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic told reporters in French. “He has personal stuff to handle; on our side, we’ll concentrate on hockey.”

Sharks captain Logan Couture said, “It’s obviously disappointing, but it’s out of my control. It’s out of our control in the dressing room.”

In a prepared statement after the league announced its suspension, Kane apologized to the Sharks organization, his teammates, and fans for his decision, but added that he is looking forward to playing again.

As of now, it’s unclear whether the Sharks would want to part ways with Kane before the suspension ends. But simply voiding his deal, which lasts until the end of the 2024-25 season and is still set to pay him in excess of $20 million, is not an option given what Kane did.

Eric Macramalla, a legal analyst for TSN Radio and Forbes, wrote in Forbes that to void Kane’s deal, the Sharks would have to demonstrate that he “materially breached his contract” — language that appears in Paragraph 14 of any NHL standard playing contract.

The language is to, one, “fail, refuse, or neglect to obey the Club’s rules governing training and conduct of Players, if such failure, refusal or neglect should constitute a material breach of this SPC” and two, “refuse or neglect to render his services hereunder or in any other manner materially breach this SPC.”

Kane is in the fourth year of a seven-year, $49 million deal he signed with the Sharks in May 2018.

With the suspension, Kane will forfeit about $1.68 million of his $7 million salary for this season.

Boughner said it’s to be determined whether Kane would be allowed to use team facilities to train in preparation for a return to the ice, adding that some of those details are still being worked out. The Sharks are on the road until Oct. 16 when they return home from a game in Nashville.

“We’ve got a while to deal with this. This is going to be a decision that’s first made by management and ownership. After that, it trickles down,” Boughner said. “We haven’t even brought that up, I haven’t had any discussions with management or ownership or anybody over that.”

Is there a path for Kane to return to this team?

“We’ll see once the suspension is over,” Vlasic said. “I’m not in a position to say if there is or there isn’t. My job is to help the team win on the ice.”

Boughner, Couture, and Timo Meier all said they have not spoken to Kane since the suspension was announced. After Tuesday, the Sharks play in Ottawa on Thursday, in Toronto on Friday, and in Boston on Sunday before the final game against the Predators at Bridgestone Arena next week.

The Sharks are bound to be asked about Kane in subsequent days or weeks until his potential return but are hoping for it not to be a distraction.

“We have a pretty strong leadership group. We knew something was coming down the line and there were investigations going on,” Boughner said. “What we’ve just chosen to do as a group to basically put that out of our radar. We just have so much work to do here.”

Kane has not been around the Sharks since the start of the team’s training camp on Sept. 22 by mutual agreement because he was the subject of multiple NHL investigations.

“Since day one, we’ve really kept our focus on the job at hand, and that’s getting through training camp and getting our structure and details down, and then obviously the start of our season,” Boughner said. “We haven’t sat there and had a team meeting or a team talk about it. Really, we’re just worried about the 23 guys that we have here and try and win as many hockey games as we can.”

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