Oilers fans livid with team treatment of serious injury to Kane

Kane skated on the fourth line at practice today and later revealed that he's been suffering from a sports hernia through most of the season. He will try to play in the playoffs, but admitted he's not close to 100%. With this information though, Oilers fans are baffled that the team didn't handle this injury differently.

If Kane and the Oilers knew about this injury earlier on, it's extremely puzzling why they wouldn't have shut him down earlier in the year to get corrective surgery. The Oilers could've even put Kane on LTIR with a legitimate injury, allowing him significant rest before returning to the playoffs and allowing the team to take on additional salary at the trade deadline. It's bizarre enough that Kane revealed his injury publicly before a playoff series, something that never occurs in the NHL at all.

Instead, the Oilers seem to have made things deliberately harder on themselves by allowing Kane to play through this significant injury. Hopefully these few days rest will do at least something for Kane to be more effective in playoff games he does play in. Unfortunately right now, it looks like Kane will have to be sheltered on the fourth line, or replaced with a depth forward to ice the best possible lineup.