Report: Teams lining up to sign Evander Kane to one year deal

In case you somehow, someway missed all of the drama surrounding Evander Kane this past weekend... well... buckle up.

The now former San Jose Sharks forward had his contract terminated by the club after he reportedly left the team's AHL affiliate San Jose Barracuda to fly home to Vancouver for the holidays despite testing positive for COVID-19. Kane was allegedly still in the quarantine phase of his illness but flew home against league protocol anyways and then flew back to San Jose a week later than he was scheduled for. In effect he dipped on his team to spend Christmas at home even while being COVID-19 positive and then stayed at home an extra week... just because? Once Kane arrived back in San Jose he was informed that he had breached his contract and it would be terminated, resulting in him becoming a free agent.

This, of course, is on top of all the other drama that Kane has gotten himself into in the past calendar year. Without rehashing everything in order he has filed for bankruptcy, gone through a messy divorce and was suspended for 21 games for providing a fake vaccination card. To be perfectly frank, I'm surprised it took the Sharks this long to finally nail him on something that would enable them to terminate his contract.

While Kane and his agent Dan Milstein have officially filed a grievance over the termination of his contract, he is now technically a free agent after passing through waivers unclaimed. But... surely no one would sign this guy, right? He's an absolute train wreck and he's been a total distraction on every team he's ever played for. Well... think again because TSN NHL insider Pierre LeBrun reports that there's "lots of interest from a number of teams" in Kane on a one year free agent deal.

Check it out:

Now, take this report with a grain of salt. After all, it's coming via Kane's agent himself and it's in his own best interests to generate whatever market he can for his client's services. But, assuming it is true, maybe I shouldn't be surprised? There's no denying Kane's skills. He can put the puck in the net and he's an effective forechecker, as well. Strip away all the baggage and he's a very valuable hockey player. I just have a hard time stripping away all that baggage and, frankly, I'd be very wary of adding him to my locker room if I were an NHL GM.