Last Year
Injuries.
That could pretty much sum up Evander Kane’s situation last season. Freak injury after freak injury that never allowed him to fully find his groove before the playoffs. Soon enough, the playoffs were over and you were left wondering what could have been if Kane had been able to stay healthy and avoid injury. Unfortunately, for all of us and especially Kane, hockey is not an easy game. It takes its toll and can bite at unexpected times and in unexpected ways.
Kane missed exactly half the season last year, suiting up for only 41 games. It was a season of bad luck that Kane struggled to recover from. First, he had a freak injury against Tampa Bay on November 8, where Tampa forward Patrick Maroon’s skate ended up cutting Kane’s wrist wide open, leaving blood all over the ice as Kane scrambled to the bench, screaming for help. That wrist injury cost Kane 31 games and two and a half months on the injured reserve. He did come back earlier than expected with an injury that serious on January 17th. Kane’s luck still hadn’t flipped back to the good side of the coin yet because he sustained some cracked/broken ribs. He missed another 9 games from February 17 to March 9. Talk about a bad luck season.
Kane struggled to get back up to speed for the rest of the season due to his successive injuries. It never really allowed him to get back in the groove before the season ended.
In the 14 games Kane played before the wrist surgery, he was looking close to what the Oilers got in the middle of the previous season. He had 5 goals, 8 assists, and 13 points in 14 games. While it wasn’t quite a point per game production, it would have extrapolated to 29 goals, 47 assists, and 76 points over the course of a full 82-game schedule. These are very respectable numbers that would have placed him fourth in team scoring, behind McDavid, Draisaitl, RNH, and Hyman (in that order).
The other important part of this equation, especially when you’re dealing with forwards who are hired to score goals and put up points, is: are they outscoring their opponents? Though it was a small sample size of 14 games, Kane had a goals for % (GF%) at even strength (5 on 5) of 58.82%, which is really good. Meaning that during regular gameplay (not special teams), 58.82% of the goals scored when Evander Kane was on the ice were in Edmonton’s favour. He was helping outscore the opposition at a very substantial rate, which is exactly what you are paying Kane to do.
Looking at Kane’s numbers post wrist injury, though, is where things begin to look ugly. Kane posted 11-4-15-27 GP, which, if we do the same practice and project that over the course of an 82-game season, it would look like 33-12-45 in 82 GP, a steep drop in production from the first 14 games. Mostly in the assist department. Could it be true that Kane’s wrist was bothering him a lot and it was more difficult to make quick, accurate passes that led to assists or at least scoring chances? Someone could definitely argue that.
That the most concerning part outside of the drop in point production was the GF% at even strength. In Kane’s first 14 games, he dominated the competition with a 58.82% GF% at 5 on 5. After returning from the wrist injury until the end of the year, including a span of missed games due to broken ribs as well, Kane’s GF% at 5 on 5 dropped to a putrid 38.2%. The only players worse on the Oilers over the course of the full season were Jason Demers (1 GP, got scored on twice) and James Hamblin, an early season call-up from Bakersfield who played 10 games.
After Kane’s 38.2 GF%, the next lowest Oilers regular was Jesse Puljujarvi who had 42.31 GF% at 5 on 5. Things went very poorly for Kane post injury last season, he could never quite get his bearing’s and the team managed to thrive in spite of him not because of him.
This Year
Staying healthy.
That’s the goal for Evander Kane, which shouldn’t be too hard as long as his luck has changed over the summer. A wrist injury could flare up and hinder, but it’s not likely to keep him out of games. Broken ribs can happen to anyone, and Kane is a tough customer. They are both injuries that often aren’t recurring per se, like a nagging shoulder injury (Klefbom, Hemsky), or a nagging hip injury (Puljujarvi), or concussions like many players have that are so likely to happen again after the first time you get injured.
I expect Kane will be closer to the Kane that was terrorizing opponents at the start of the season with gaudy high GF% numbers, rather than post injury Kane that had some of the worst GF% numbers I’ve seen in a long time from a regular contributing Oiler in a prominent role.
That’s not to say I think Kane will sustain those impressive numbers all season long, having a GF% somewhere in the 51-54% range seems more likely. In line with the other top 6 forwards on the Oilers from last season. Still out scoring but in a more reasonable range over a longer sample size.
As far as scoring expectations for Kane, seeing him and Hyman take turns on the power play seems possible but Hyman keeps making a case to stay as a permanent member, so power play opportunities may be limited. He’ll have quality line mates all season whether it’s being centered by Connor, Lean, or RNH there will be someone to give him a pass to fire into the net. Kane will be entering into his 32 year old season, coming back from injury. I think to take a bit of a haircut from his prorated scoring rates through the first 14 games of the season will put him in the range for this upcoming season.
Projection
25-35-60 in 82 GP
Next Up
Connor Brown
Rig City Sports 
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