NEWSLETTER
“Patrick hasn’t made a decision yet.”
That’s the text Elliotte Friedman reportedly received from Patrick Kane‘s agent, Pat Brisson, on Thursday in the Friday morning episode of the “32 Thoughts” Podcast.
And yet he goes on to say that New York Rangers GM Chris Drury has been calling around trying to dump around $1.6 million in salary (ie the magic number he needs to shed to make a deal for Kane work financially at the deadline with a third team also eating some of the cap hit).
Two players whose salaries could get the Rangers to that number? Vitali Kravtsov and Jake Leschyshyn. And they were healthy scratched last night by the Rangers, which is why we are where we are with this “OMG IT’S HAPPENING” Friday morning happening.
More steps need to occur for this whole thing to play out, however. And Friedman offers up some additional processes that we can keep an eye out for on Friday that might appear to be additional signals that things are moving in a direction that lands Kane at MSG.
If Drury cannot find a suitor for either Kravtsov or Leschyshyn, one/both of them could be on waivers as soon as this afternoon. The Rangers would need to do that to buy themselves additional cap space by demoting one/both of them asap; the NHL calculates the cap number(s) daily, so even sending those guys down for 2-4 days makes a difference.
Friedman notes that just because the Rangers are making these moves, that does not guarantee a deal happens. And Brisson saying Kane hasn’t made a decision is still — one week from the deadline — taking it slow.
Here’s the thing: Kane can take it as slowly as he wants, but the clock keeps ticking. And, if we do see one or both of the Rangers’ skaters on waivers on Friday, we’ll all have to patiently watch to see if Kane dresses for the game in San Jose on Saturday night. Because this deal still might not be able to happen until the final minute before the trade deadline next Friday just to make the money all work.
Both Friedman and Jeff Marek also acknowledge that teams were telling them the price was too high for Kane because he wasn’t showing them anything before his recent stretch of dominance. But now that he’s blowing up and taking games over by himself, the list of interested parties is enormous. Friedman did caveat that the list of teams interested in Kane and the number of teams that actually interest Kane are undoubtedly different in length.
If the Rangers can make the money work somehow and they do make a trade for Kane actually happen, both Friedman and Marek have them now as the team to beat in the league.
You can listen to the entire Friday episode here:
