Evander Kane’s next stop may not be in the NHL at all.
The former Oilers winger is still unsigned as an unrestricted free agent, and with his NHL market looking thin, a move overseas has entered the picture. One reported landing spot is the KHL, where Ak Bars is said to be taking a hard look at the veteran power forward.
The source states, "Ak Bars is interested in Canadian forward Evander Kane, Sport-Express has learned. The Kazan club is closely examining the 35-year-old forward, who previously played in the KHL."
Kane’s name has been in the spotlight lately for reasons beyond hockey, thanks to a public back-and-forth with an Edmonton-based sports reporter. But the bigger issue for his career is simple: he still doesn’t have a contract, and the options in North America appear limited.
At 35, Kane is in that tricky zone where age, production, and reputation all start to collide. He put up 13 goals and 18 assists, which wasn’t disastrous, but it also marked a step in the wrong direction. The hesitation around him makes sense when you factor in the downward trend and the noise that tends to follow him.
Kane has already spent time in the KHL once before. During the 2012/13 season, he signed with Dynamo Minsk and appeared in 12 games, finishing with one goal and no assists.
For now, the question isn’t whether Kane has a name people recognize. It’s whether any NHL team still wants to bet on him, or whether the KHL becomes the next chapter.
In Other News...
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That is where the pressure starts to build. Babcocks approach is a different kind of test for a roster built to contend now, and the question is whether that style can translate fast enough in a market that has little patience for growing pains. Even around the margins, the conversation keeps circling back to the urgency of the moment, with Evander Kanes social media exchange with Sportsnets Mark Spector adding another layer of noise to an offseason already defined by expectations and scrutiny. [Read more 🡒]
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Mike Babcock Walks Into Edmontons Biggest Pressure Cooker Yet
The Oilers have made a familiar kind of bet for a franchise living under a championship timer, turning to Mike Babcock as their new head coach and moving on from Kris Knoblauch. In Edmonton, the conversation is never just about the next game. It is about whether a coach can handle a roster built to contend immediately, where every shift gets magnified and the margin for patience is thin.
Babcock steps into a setting where early results will shape the entire conversation around his tenure. Player buy-in, system changes, special teams, and the simple lack of time to work through mistakes all sit in the background from day one, and any sluggish stretch could quickly become a referendum on the hire itself. For a team in win-now mode, the pressure is not abstract. It is the kind that starts building before the first long losing streak can even take hold. [Read more 🡒]