Oilers' Evander Kane discloses what struggles led to multiple-month delay in getting surgery

By ARJUN B

Modified Sep 19, 2024 04:11 GMT

Edmonton Oilers forward Evander Kane spoke to the media on Wednesday at Rogers Place to explain why there's been a delay in getting surgery for multiple injuries he has been dealing with. He revealed he has been playing through injuries to both hip adductors, two torn lower abdominal muscles, and two hernias.

Kane explained that after the NHL season ended, he wanted to see if rest and rehab could help improve his injuries before pursuing surgery.

“We took some time off to see if anything settled down, if anything could be rehabbed. There were some people that believed that we could possibly get better through rehab, but that ended up not being the case.” Kane said per NHL.com.

He noted how important it was to find the best surgeon to fix his injury. But he also discussed the struggles of that process which caused delays to the procedures being done.

"There was some confusion throughout the offseason in terms of how we were going to fix some of these injuries. And different doctors obviously had different opinions and just continuing to do my due diligence and asking questions and also talking to many other players around the league that have had maybe not the exact same injury, but similar injuries or have also had work done by those surgeons."

Last season, Kane scored 24 goals and 20 assists in 77 regular season games. He added four goals and four assists in 20 playoff games. The surgery and recovery are expected to keep Kane out for 2-3 months.

Oilers General Manager Stan Bowman will not place Evander Kane on LTIR

Oilers GM Stan Bowman announced during Wednesday's media availability that the team will not place Evander Kane on long-term injured reserve (LTIR) to start the season despite Kane being unavailable to play.

Bowman cited the team's current salary cap situation as the reason behind the decision.

"We don't need to use long-term injury right now. We have the salary cap room.” Bowman said.

Bowman mentioned that Evander Kane will be on the regular roster as the season starts. If they face several short-term injuries and need to bring up players, they have the option to put him on long-term injury.

Part of the reason for their summer moves was to avoid starting the season with long-term injuries and that plan remains unchanged, Bowman noted. Among the Oilers' big offseason moves were signing veteran wingers Viktor Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner, re-signing Corey Perry, Adam Henrique and Connor Brown, and extending Leon Draisaitl.