Evander Kane back on the ice for the first time

For the first time in nearly a month after suffering a scary cut on his wrist, Evander Kane was back out on the ice for a quick twirl in full equipment. Even though we’ve still got a long way to go until he’s back in the lineup, how can you not feel even a little bit better after seeing him back out there?

On November 8th, Patrick Maroon accidentally stepped on Evander Kane’s arm, resulting in one of the scarier injuries that we’ve seen in quite some time. Outside of the obvious hole that losing Kane left on this team, there was real concern about long-term damage to his arm given the severity of the injury, and to see him back out on the ice for even a light skate is pretty fantastic from my side of the TV screen. Even though we know he’s still got plenty of work to do before he’s able to return, having Kane back on the ice already means that he’s trending in the right direction, which is a huge relief given that he told Scott Oake on November 19th that he still didn’t have feeling back in his thumb.

Over at Sportsnet in his 32 Thoughts column, Elliotte Friedman gave us an update on where Kane is at and whether or not this thumb numbness is a normal part of the recovery process:

It’s no secret that the Oilers are a much different hockey team with Kane out of the lineup, and it’s not exactly surprising to hear that the team was looking for some truculence in his absence. This past week, Frank Seravalli told Tyler that the Oilers showed interest in both Ryan Reaves and Wayne Simmonds as they look to add more sandpaper to the lineup, and that tells me that Ken Holland and his staff are missing more than just Kane’s offence. At the same point, there is no replacing a player like Evander Kane, and I’m almost glad that these beefcake trade rumours have yet to become anything more than chatter because any addition just wouldn’t be the same no matter how hard they tried. It’s more likely that we’ll just have to wait for Kane to full recover before we get that element back on the roster, and if having him on the ice this morning is any indication, the team is one small step closer to having that happen.

In 14 games played this season, Evander Kane has registered five goals and 13 points to go along with his 16 PIMs, 50 shots, and 49.9 CF% while averaging 19:30 in TOI. Kane is currently in the first year of a four-year, $20.5 million contract ($5.125 million in average annual value) that he signed back on July 13th of this year.