The Edmonton Oilers salary cap crunch may have solved itself. At least for now.
According to 630 CHED’s Bob Stauffer, winger Evander Kane will start the season on the long-term injured reserve as he works his way through a sports hernia/hip injury.
Hearing there is a very good chance that the @EdmontonOilers Evander Kane won't be ready for the start of the season…that he may require surgery…and is likely to be on LTIR to start the year
— Bob Stauffer (@Bob_Stauffer) August 12, 2024
Kane, 33, appeared in 77 regular season games for the Oilers last year, scoring 24 goals and 44 points, but right before the playoffs started, he revealed he had been playing with a sports hernia injury. Oilers CEO Jeff Jackson later said it was a hip injury. It explained Kane’s struggles as the season went on, which explained why the physical forward was not looking like himself.
While he played in 20 games in the playoffs, scoring four goals and eight points, his effectiveness was limited. Kane would play in all five games against the LA Kings, all seven against the Vancouver Canucks, and in all six games against the Dallas Stars. But in Game 6 against the Stars, he was shaken up after laying a hit against Dallas defenceman Alex Petrovic, limiting him to just 4:39 in that game.
He would draw in for Games 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals against the Florida Panthers, but his injury kept him out of the remaining five games of the series.
After the season, it was reported Kane would try and rehabilitate the injury without surgery, but Stauffer’s report indicates that it may not be enough.
The Oilers were active in free agency, signing Jeff Skinner, Viktor Arvidsson and a number of other players, pushing them above the salary cap by $354,167, according to PuckPedia. The club still has to sign restricted free agents Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg, further complicating their cap situation.
Kane is entering the third year of a four-year contract with the Oilers, paying him an AAV of $5.125-million. His landing on the long-term injured reserve would clear that money from the Oilers’ books while out of the lineup, getting the team under the salary cap, even with signing Holloway and Broberg.
That being said, it complicates some matters for the team as whenever he would be recovered from the surgery, the Oilers would need to find a way to clear salary cap space to have him return to the lineup. The Oilers also wouldn’t be able to accumulate cap space ahead of the NHL’s Trade Deadline.
An option for the Oilers to do so would be to trade Kane once he is healthy. While he currently has a full no-move clause in his deal, it opens up to a 16-team approved trade list on March 1st, 2025, right before the NHL’s trade deadline.
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.
