One on-ice clip from the Edmonton Oilers latest episode of The Drop sums up a special quality that Evander Kane possesses and the Oilers will need to stand up to the baddies and bully boys of the Florida Panthers.
Kane isn’t an on-ice trash talker. He’s an on-ice intimidator, both physically and verbally.
The clip comes from the Kings-Oilers series, when Kane came back from injury and surgery to give his team a boost. On one early play he got an iffy penalty for boarding Kings d-man Brandt Clarke. Clarke scored on the subsequent power play, but Kane came right back at him, saying to young Clarke: “F*ck, you’re soft man. Holy f*ck. It was f*ckin’ soft. F*ckin’ falling around, flipping around, f*ckin divin’ all over the place.”
Kings forward Jeff Mallott, a career AHLer, came up to Kane at that point, saying, “What are you going to do about it?”
“What are you going to do?” Kane shot back. “Who the f*ck are you?”
Kane isn’t exactly Pink Pony Club material, you know what I mean? He’s Fight Club material.
The Oilers are going to need Kane against the Florida Panthers, a much more physical and tough team than Edmonton’s previous 2025 playoff opponents.
No team has hit more in the 2025 playoffs than the Panthers with 47 hits per 60.
The Oilers just beat Dallas, but the Stars were the least physically team in the playoffs, with 30 hits per 60.
Vegas ranked 13th out of 16 playoff teams, 33 hits per 60. The Oilers rank sixth with 39 hits per 60.
The Florida hit parade is led by a fourth-line hit machine of Jonah Gadjovich, 41 hits per 60, to lead all playoff performers, A.J Greer, 29 hits per 60 for fourth overall, and Jesper Boqvist, 23 hits per 60, 12th overall.
The Oilers top hitter Zach Hyman, 28 hits per 60, sixth overall, is out with injury. But Edmonton counters with Vasily Podkolzin, 27 hits per 60, eighth overall, Kasperi Kapanen, 21 hits per 60, 16th overall, Trent Frederic, 20 hits per 60, 21st overall, and Kane, 18 hits per 60, 36th overall.
Florida also has intimidating forward Sam Bennett and, of course, uber-agitator Matthew Tkachuk.
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Last year Edmonton wasn’t intimated by Florida, but all the hitting and Florida’s defensive discipline did take the oomph out of Edmonton’s attack late in the series. In the final three games, Edmonton could get just nine Grade A shots per game after averaging 16.5 Grade As in the first four games.
Kane wasn’t much as factor in that series because he was so injured with a sports hernia and other core issues that he was a shadow of himself. Kane got scratched after three games as he was essentially unable to perform.
This year, after a year of recovery from multiple surgeries, Kane is in better shape, though most players are now nursing some injury or another, including big Panters hitters Greer and Eetu Luostarinen.
With Hyman out, Kane is expected to play more and bring more. He’s done that for the Oilers early in the 2024 playoffs, dominating the Kings with his physical play and helping deal with the menace of then Canucks apex predator Nikita Zadorov in the second round.
And in the 2022 playoffs, Kane famously got in the face of current Panthers leader Matthew Tkachuk.
Asked by the Journal’s Jim Matheson in March 2022 about jousting and verbally sparring with Tkachuk after a face-off, Kane said of the player: “We know what he’s about. There’s never a lot of back-up to that talk.”
In the 2022 playoffs , Kane became a hated figure in Calgary. As the Calgary Sun reported: “Already, in Game 1, he was in the middle of a couple of confrontations with Flames players. He had a minutes-long, not-so-friendly chit-chat with Matthew Tkachuk both on the ice and in the penalty box in the third period.”
On defence, the Panthers also have a hitting machine in former Oilers player Dmitry Kulikov. The Oil’s defence is more mobile than physical, though Darnell Nurse can be another intimidator, and Mattias Ekholm backs down from no one. Jake Walman has also been a beast for the Oilers when it comes to blocking shots.
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Kane’s 2025 playoffs has been marked by solid play, but now comes his biggest test, the biggest test of his career.
Do I think Kane will meet the challenge of the menacing Panthers? I do.
He’s had all kinds of haters in his career, including some in Edmonton this season, fans who wanted to see him traded away, even if it took Edmonton throwing in a sweetener to move out Kane and his contract.
I thought such talk was madness. I thought if Kane was healthy he could be a killer in these playoffs, just as he’d been early in the 2024 playoffs when he was playing hurt.
Florida presents a unique test for a player with Kane’s unique skillset. I await the confrontation with relish.
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