SAN JOSE – The Sharks only have a few more days to decide — or announce — how they want to handle Evander Kane’s potential return to the organization after his 21-game suspension comes to an end.
According to Sharks coach Bob Boughner, though, inserting Kane back into the lineup right away is not an option.
Kane did not participate in training camp and hasn’t practiced with the team all season. Two days after the season started, Kane was suspended for violating the NHL/NHLPA COVID-19 Protocol, extending his time away from the team on the ice to over two months.
Kane’s suspension officially ends after the Sharks play the Blackhawks in Chicago on Sunday, and general manager Doug Wilson hasn’t given any indication as to how he plans to handle the situation. The Sharks’ next game after Sunday is Tuesday in New Jersey against the Devils.
Having Kane play right away, though, is “not realistic,” Boughner said.
“That’s why players come to camp,” Boughner said Wednesday morning before the Sharks host the Ottawa Senators. “It’s a couple-week process where you play preseason games and play inter-squad games, you get body contact, you get pushed around and that’s really what the next phase of the training would be.
“As far as I know, that hasn’t happened. So, realistic? No.”
Per the NHL and NHLPA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement, a player has to give consent if the club wishes to have him play with its minor league team to improve conditioning. Any conditioning loan could not last for more than 14 days, per the CBA.
In 2018, Tom Wilson of the Washington Capitals spent 16 games away after a suspension but did not play any AHL games before his return to the NHL.
Wilson was suspended for 20 games by the NHL for an illegal check to the head of St. Louis forward Oskar Sundqvist in a September 2018 preseason game. But Wilson had his suspension reduced to 14 games by an independent arbitrator, and by the time the arbitration process was complete, Wilson had already served 16 games. He immediately returned to the Capitals’ lineup, but he at least had the benefit of a training camp.
In January 2019, Austin Watson, then with the Nashville Predators, was suspended indefinitely without pay as part of the NHL’s substance abuse program. Watson, now in his second season with the Senators, did not practice with the team for over two months as he missed 27 games. He played in two AHL games before he returned to Nashville’s lineup in April.
Kane, 30, has never played an AHL game and it is unclear if he will do so next month.
The Barracuda, after its game Saturday in Ontario, is not scheduled to play again until Dec. 4 in Abbotsford. The team is holding practice in San Jose from Monday until Thursday next week before they depart for British Columbia.
Beyond his conditioning, though, Kane would also have to get his timing back and learn the nuances of the Sharks’ system, which has been tweaked since the end of last season. Kane’s last NHL game was on May 12 as the Sharks missed the playoffs for the second consecutive year.
“No doubt it’s going to be tough for someone just to jump in and play at a high level,” Sharks winger Andrew Cogliano said Wednesday morning, adding that if Kane plays in the NHL right away. “as an athlete, a professional, he’s going to have to make it work and get up to speed pretty quickly.”
It’s likely the Sharks have explored other options regarding Kane if they no longer want him with the team.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Freidman mentioned on Toronto radio Tuesday that he “heard” the Sharks would be willing to retain some of Kane’s salary to help facilitate a trade.
But a deal could still prove to be extremely difficult considering the size of Kane’s contract, which carries an annual cap hit of $7 million for three more seasons after this one. There’s also the question of whether Kane is a negative presence in the locker room, and whether other teams would be willing to assume that potential risk.
The Sharks could also just pay Kane what he is owed and ask him to stay away from the team for the rest of the season and revisit the situation then. Or, they could place him on waivers. In which case, if he is not claimed by another team, he would be assigned to the Barracuda.
Voiding Kane’s deal is not an option right now. A contract can only be terminated if the player does something to violate it, and that hasn’t been the case so far.
In any case, the Sharks have said since the start of training camp in September that their focus is on the players that they have in their room.
With Kane away, the Sharks had a 9-8-1 record and were in fifth place in the Pacific Division before Wednesday’s game. That’s an improvement over the 7-9-2 record they had after 18 games last season when they played all but four games away from home.
“We’ll see what happens,” Cogliano said. “I know it’s a story. I know a lot of things are going on, but there’s so much in the NHL that you have to be thinking about in terms of yourself on a game-by-game basis that I think that’s all we’re focused on at that point. Those decisions are really not ours.”
