Evander Kane Is Red-Hot And Proving He Is Part Of The Solution, Not The Problem

With another two in the net Saturday evening, the Buffalo Sabres’ hottest forward is also . . . one of the players fans mot want to see traded?

Buffalo Sabres left winger Evander Kane scored his 17th and 18th goals of the season Saturday evening in Toronto, helping the Sabres deal a significant blow to the Leafs’ playoff push.  (Toronto’s loss allowed the Philadelphia Flyers to tie them in the Eastern Conference standings.)

Those two goals temporarily made Kane Buffalo’s leading goal scorer (Kyle Okposo scored once on Sunday, giving him 18 on the season as well), and established him as the Sabres hottest player since December 1:

So naturally there are now a million and one calls for Evander Kane to be traded by the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for a top-4 defenseman.

A lot of the people calling for Evander Kane to be traded are doing so because of his so-called character issues, and I get it – no one wants a distraction or a cancer in the locker room if they can avoid it – but your personal feelings for Kane aside, the Buffalo Sabres would be stupid to trade Kane this season.

For starters, the “trade him because of his character issues” argument makes no sense – if you, the fans, are worried about Kane’s character, you better believe GMs around the league are, too.  You’re not going to sneak anything by any one in this day and age; consider every “Trade Evander Kane before he does something stupid” Tweet a scouting report for opposing teams around the NHL.

Besides, it’s a bit too far removed from Kane’s incident during the 2016 NHL Entry Draft weekend to still be complaining about Kane’s off-ice behavior.  No, I don’t condone loutish behavior, but we already took Kane to task here at this blog and since then, he has done nothing off the ice to concern fans of the Buffalo Sabres.   I understand if many fans simply don’t like him as a person, but if that is the only reason you want him traded, good luck with that!

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Of course, there is a viable reason for why some fans want the Sabres to shop Kane – as one of the hottest goal scorers in the NHL, Kane actually has value, which is more than a lot of players on the Sabres’ roster can say (outside of the untouchables – Ryan O’Reilly, Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart, and Rasmus Ristolainen).  The Buffalo Sabres fanbase is desperate to see the team begin competing for Lord Stanley’s Cup, and understands that the Sabres still are thin at the blueline.  Bringing a top-4 LHD into the 716 should be Buffalo’s number one priority, and it is entirely possible that a trade package featuring Evander Kane and another player would be enough to secure a top-notch blueliner.

The problem with this thinking, of course, is that the Sabres would be sacrificing top-6 scoring in order to bolster its blueline.  This would not be a problem if Buffalo was loaded with offensive firepower (it’s not) , or had a player coming off of injured reserve who could replace Kane (nope), or even had a prospect who clearly was ready to jump into a top-6 role in the NHL (nope again).  In reality, the Sabres are weak at the blueline and in its crop of legitimate top-6 forwards, so using a Kane trade to fix one hole just leaves another hole to be plugged during the offseason.  At this stage in the rebuild, swapping players is a baby step toward improving at best, and standing still at worst.

Sabres GM Tim Murray appears to like what he is seeing from Kane, and while he will not go so far as to call Kane untouchable, he did admit that he is not actively shopping him and would only consider trading him if a rival GM went all Don Corleone on him (courtesy of The Buffalo  News) :

"I’ve said from day one, when Evander steps on the ice, I’m very happy with him.  He plays the game hard. He’s going to compete every night and every shift. He’s the last guy most nights I’m going to complain about his lack of effort.The off-ice stuff, we’ve worked through that and we continue to work with him. It will never be forgotten obviously, nor do we want to forget. You learn from mistakes. But on the ice, what I see now is what we traded for I think. I’m a fan of his game. . .Is there a crazy deal somebody could throw at me that would force me to do it? I guess there is. … I’m not throwing rumors out there getting a media guy to help me and say, ‘Evander is available.’ That type of thing. Not at all."

Clearly, if GMTM could convince one of his pals to part with a top-4 blueliner and a really solid top-9 forward for Kane, GMTM would pull the trigger – if someone is crazy enough to hold a 2-for-1 sale, yeah, you make that trade.  But outside of Colorado, there are not too many teams that are stupid enough to make a trade like that any more, in which case the Buffalo Sabres would be making more of a 1-for-1 trade that would make the Sabres only marginally better at best.

Next: Lehner's Outburst Hints At Changes To Come For Sabres

The Buffalo Sabres are the sort of team that need to listen to any trade pitch thrown at them, and there is always an outside chance that some GM will be so desperate to make a playoff push that he will give GMTM an offer he can’t refuse for Evander Kane’s services.  l would never say never when it comes to players being traded – believe it or not, there are scenarios out there in which even jack Eichel would be traded, if Tim Murray legitimately felt it would improve the team – but we cannot deal in exceptions to the rule.  A trade that sends Kane and a lesser player (or pick) out of town for a defenseman and a lesser player (or pick) is essentially a draw-even trade.   At this point in the rebuild, moving sideways is not an option.