When Evander Kane will be cleared to play after surgery

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Liam McCormick
September 14, 2024 (4:14 PM)

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Heading into next season, one of the Oilers biggest question marks will be the return date of Evander Kane.

Kane is undergoing surgery within the next 10 days to repair a sports hernia that he played through for the majority of last season. NHL insider Elliotte Friedman reported that Kane would miss months but didn't specify an actual return, but now Yahoo Sports is speculating Kane will be back in the lineup before December 25th.

Yahoo Sports evaluated the history of 17 NHL players recovering from sports hernia surgery, and concluded that Kane will likely return between the end of October and the middle of December. Considering Friedman's report as well, it's likely that Kane will be out closer to December, and shouldn't miss more than 30% of the year.

»If Kane gets surgery next week, that would put him on track to return anywhere between the end October and the middle of December. If we split the difference and give him a nine-week recovery, he'll miss the Oilers' first 20 games.»
- Finn Marceau, Yahoo Sports

One cause for concern is the fact that older NHL players don't have a history of positive performance after returning from this type of surgery. Kane will be 33 years old next season and has a lengthy injury history just in the last year alone - hopefully he will be able to be an outlier on the performance trend. If Kane can be the explosive power forward he's been in the past, the Oilers offence this year will be completely unstoppable.

Kane is under contract for the next two seasons at $5.125M. If he can keep up his play to match the value of his contract, he can hopefully win a cup with this Oilers team, and retire to his recently custom built home in Edmonton.

Source for Kane Stats: PuckPedia - Evander Kane