Top Insider: Patrick Kane ‘wants to go to the Rangers’ or bust
I wouldn’t call this “Breaking News” because almost everyone knows that Patrick Kane wants to go the New York Rangers.
However, one the NHL’s top insiders is taking reports by ESPN’s Emily Kaplan and NY Post Larry Brooks a step further. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman joined The Jeff Marek Show to break down the revived Kane to the Rangers trade talk.
“I absolutely don’t think this is any kind of a coincidence,” Friedman said. “I think Kane is an a position that he’s going to do one of two things. He’s going to pick a team that he wants to go to, and have that team be his team. Or if he can’t go to that team he’ll go to the deadline and does what he needs to do to be on time to play next year.
“Look, I think he wants to go to the Rangers,” Friedman started laughing. “I’m not a genius to predict that. We all know it, and if you look at the Rangers lineup there’s room for him on the right side. The Rangers are going to have to do a little surgery in order to do this…I think they’re $75K short even if Kravtsov is included. So the Rangers might only be able to carry 20 players in the regular season. Playoffs you can do whatever.”
Patrick Kane to the New York Rangers or bust
Jeff Marek followed up on Friedman’s comments stating this is strikingly similar to Claude Giroux’s situation last year, where he gave the Philadelphia Flyers just the Florida Panthers he would waive his no-move clause for.
Friedman wholeheartedly agree with his colleague but not too long ago, Kane’s agent Pat Brisson said exactly that.
Back in October, Brisson spoke with Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic (subscription required) regarding Kane’s situation. The NHL’s super-agent quickly referenced client Claude Giroux last season.
“Claude at the beginning of last season wanted to see how things were going to go with the Flyers,” Brisson told LeBrun. “We realized pretty soon, by November, that if he wanted a chance at trying to win a Cup last season, he would have to make a decision. And he picked Florida. The Panthers were one of the most attractive teams at the trade deadline.”
Brisson also noted that it was a very hard for Giroux to leave after having spent 15 years with the team that drafted him. It looks like history is about to repeat itself with Kane either going to the New York Rangers or bust.
Kane, 34, has scored 45 points in 54 games this season. The pending UFA has a massive cap hit of $10.5 million which means a third team is needed to drive AAV down.
As for everyone being so sure that it’s the Rangers for Kane, after the team acquired Vladimir Tarasenko, he openly admitted disappointment.
“It’s not the happiest I’ve been to hear about a trade,” Kane said. “If things are going to happen, that was a team I was definitely looking at. It seems like they kind of filled their void and went ahead and made a deal.”
So here we are, eight days away from the March 3 Trade Deadline with the Rangers actively trying to figure out how to fit Kane in under the cap. Buckle your seatbelts because this should be a fun ride.
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