I don’t believe that Patrick Kane will sign with the Red Wings when he recovers from hip resurfacing surgery, plain and simple.
I believe that Kane has better options in terms of sliding into the middle of a Cup contender’s lineup, and that playing for a winning team is his priority, not reuniting with former linemate and Detroit forward Alex DeBrincat.
The Kane rumors were a a fun end-of-summer remembrance of the days when the Red Wings could pick and choose their free agent signings from the “pick of the litter,” but they were never realistic.
This morning, Bleacher Report’s Sara Civian examines the “Pros and Cons” of a scenario in which Patrick Kane actually does sign with the Red Wings, and while stranger things have happened, I’m 99% certain that I can guarantee that Kane won’t be signing with the Wings:
Pro: It’s a low-risk, high-reward move
Kane to the Red Wings would be a low-risk move on several fronts.
First, raise your hand if you expect Detroit to hoist the Cup next season. No one? A handful of you at best. Good coaches hate viewing just making the playoffs as a success, so expect Detroit head coach Derek Lalonde to say otherwise. But truthfully, the next stop on the general manager Steve Yzerman’s Yzerplan train is the Wings simply making it to the playoffs in the ridiculous East. It’s hardly the end of the world if the Red Wings sign Kane for a mostly off-ice benefit.
Next, we can’t imagine Kane’s contract costing a fortune, especially with particularly hard salary-cap constraints this year, and Kane’s eagerness to be a part of another winning team (which, yes, could be the Red Wings).
Best-case scenario, he has some second wind-y, bounce-back season where he finds a groove and hovers around his career numbers one more time (indulge in the delusion). Worst-case scenario, he’s cheap and still usable on the power play. Not much to lose, here.
Civian lists three “pros” and two “cons” as to whether Kane might sign with Detroit, and her bottom line is a really good one:
Con: Is This the Yzerplan We Dreamed of?
The whole theme of the Yzerplan has been to stay the course, to take no shortcuts, and to build a team that will have sustained success that looks like…well..your mother, father, and Steve Yzerman’s Detroit Red Wings.
They waited and waited, carefully calculating trades and accumulating draft picks. They’ve got prospects of all ages and talents stewing at different levels, and young stars like Moritz Seider primed for true breakout seasons. They’ve started to use their cap space on players that will actively make the team better, AKA hometown DeBrincat.
Is adding Kane and hoping for the best an uncharacteristically sloppy — or perhaps aimless — move? Is he better suited for a team urgently contending for a Cup? Are the Red Wings further along than some of us think (or does the front office hold that belief at least), or does none of the above need to be true?
If Detroit does decide to go for Kane, it might tell us the team internally believes this group is ready to attempt to contend, and that’s a development in itself. Or it could be as simple as “cheap player who is friends with our new star and is still pretty good.”
It’s a great thought, presuming that the Red Wings are ready to contend for a playoff spot and some playoff wins again.
But the reality is that a playoff-relevant Wings team in an incredibly deep Atlantic Division is a “win” for the Yzerplan this season, and the reality is that Patrick Kane is both high-risk because of his attempts to recover from hip resurfacing surgery, and the reality is that Kane is going to have better options in terms of easing his return into a deeper team’s lineup.
We can always hope. Hope is a good thing. But reality is our friend, too, and the reality of the situation is that there’s about a 1% chance of Patrick Kane coming to Detroit.
