We sort of suspected this over the summer when the rumor winds were blowing and we were all wondering what the Flyers were going to do about adding a scorer to play on the wing, but TSN’s Bob McKenzie reported Tuesday night that Ron Hextall was close to pulling a trigger on a trade for Evander Kane of the Winnipeg Jets.
You can watch the video here. We’ve transcribed the relevant part for you below.
This has to be the season that the Winnipeg Jets and Evander Kane put behind once and for all the “Is he happy or is he not happy as a Winnipeg Jet?” He needs to be a happy member of the team, he needs to be a productive member of the team.
And if he’s not then the Winnipeg Jets need to make a move. I believe the Winnipeg Jets did look seriously at their options of moving Evander Kane over the summer. That there were conversations with a number of teams, not the least of which was the Philadelphia Flyers, and that there was something very close to happening, but it didn’t happen.
I think the Jets, all things being equal, would love for Evander Kane to be a lifetime Jet. Score 30, 40, 50 goals a year and do his job in that regard.But we’ve got to get past all this sophomoric ambiguity on tweets and what they mean and everything else. He just needs to be a happy, functioning, performing member of the hockey club.
That last part from McKenzie, about “sophomoric ambiguity” regarding Kane’s Twitter account, might in part have something to do with that tweet he favorited in late June about a trade to Philly. Following that, it was reported by a Winnipeg reporter that the Flyers had “no interest” in a Kane trade, but I’ll trust Bob McKenzie when he says it was close.
So Evander Kane won’t be coming to town any time soon, but just keep it in the back of your head that he’s still unhappy with the Jets and that Ron Hextall has interest.
