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Well, colour us absolutely shocked. 

Early this morning on social media, Edmonton Oilers forward Evander Kane broke the news that he had been traded to the Vancouver Canucks. Going back the other way is a fourth-round pick that Vancouver originally got from Ottawa. There was no salary retention in the deal—Kane has one more year left on his contract at $5.125 million. 

The move was met with what we’ll call a “mix” of reactions from the Canucks faithful. (Check here for Mike Usinger’s take, which also includes many of those aforementioned fanbase reactions.)

Kane of course is from Vancouver and starred for the Vancouver Giants. But his relationship with the Vancouver fanbase has been tested, especially last year when Kane’s Oilers defeated the Canucks in seven games and the power forward was probably the foremost shit disturber on an Oilers team that had Corey Perry on it. 

Despite flaming out this year in this year’s playoffs in pretty rough fashion (multiple penalties in deciding games against the Florida Panthers), Kane is still a serviceable middle- or top-six winger. He had 12 points in 21 games in this year’s playoffs after missing the entire year recovering from two different surgeries. The year prior, he scored 44 points in 77 games on a high-octane Oilers squad. 

How much can the soon-to-be 34-year-old help a team that will struggle for offence this year? Sure, the Canucks’ front office is probably banking on some of the swagger Kane brought to the Oilers over the past few seasons in the playoffs. 

In terms of the off-ice stuff that you knew was coming, Kane has had a checkered past, with ugly domestic violence and sexual assault allegations, as well as trouble with gambling debts. 

(Also, just as an aside, if you grew up in Vancouver around the same time as him, it’s not exactly hard to find a person or two that has had a run-in with a young Kane. And the stories are, uh, usually not positive.)

Kane to the Canucks is something that has been floating around the team as a possibility for years—I’ve personally authored two different stories on this site about why the Canucks shouldn’t trade for Kane: here and here. With Kane having a 16-team trade list, it seems pretty clear that he was open to going back to Vancouver and the Canucks wanted his requisite toughness. 

It does seem like, at 33 years old, Kane has matured from the days of the money phone and being called out for being a terrible teammate. 

By all accounts, he seemed very well-liked in Edmonton, and Canucks’ president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford has spoken about a desire to get tougher. Is Kane the defacto J.T. Miller replacement? Just older and less effective but hopefully less of a problem in the locker room? 

The team is probably also hoping he’s something of the Brock Boeser replacement, as Kane is pretty good at scoring goals. He may be a decent fit on a line with Elias Pettersson and Jake Debrusk. Or, perhaps more likely, Kane is the insurance that the Canucks grabbed because they know they’re going to sign a smaller, skilled player to play in the top six (Marco Rossi, anyone?) and they think they need to balance that out with brute force. 

Is there any chance that Kane pulls the unheard of Reverse Messier—the hated player who comes to the Canucks and wins over the fanbase? I would say that chance is non-zero. Kane will likely be visible in the community. He wants to be here. He’s going to give it his all and try to prove that he’s changed. After all, he did win a Memorial Cup in this city as a member of the Vancouver Giants. 

Grade: C

On the one hand, giving away a fourth-round pick isn’t much to pay for a guy who can score goals. On the other, the cap space is really the value being given up, and Kane will take up more than $5 million. He should be able to contribute this season, and that’s probably all the Canucks are looking for at this point. Maybe he’ll make a fun running mate for Pettersson. And maybe he endears himself to the Vancouver crowd. Stranger things have happened. 

In any case, a Canucks season that was seemingly destined to be pretty boring will be… not that. It’s not clear what that tradeoff will cost, though.