A contender wants Evander Kane, 14 years after his first stint ended abruptly
Photo credit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Ak Bars Kazan is interested in Evander Kane. The last KHL club that signed him released him after 12 games - but that league has since changed.
Evander Kane is 35, unsigned in August, and being courted by a Russian club that reached last season's championship final.
Sport-Express reporter Mikhail Zislis has linked Ak Bars Kazan to the free-agent winger for the 2026-27 season, a report relayed in North America by Pro Hockey Rumors.
Kane has already been cut by this league
This is not his first KHL offer, and it is not his first KHL contract.
During the 2012-13 NHL lockout, Kane became the first Canadian NHL player to sign in the KHL, joining Dinamo Minsk.
It lasted 12 games. He finished with one goal, no assists and a minus-8 rating before the club announced the split in November 2012.
Minsk athletic director Igor Matushkin said Kane could not adapt to KHL hockey. He was 21 at the time and coming off a 30-goal season with the Winnipeg Jets.
The KHL he struggled in no longer exists
That stint gets cited as a warning. It reads better as an artifact.
Kane played his Minsk home games on international ice, 30 metres wide. The KHL pushed its clubs toward Finnish and NHL rink dimensions ahead of 2020-21, and most now skate on a 28-metre sheet.
Narrower ice rewards what Kane still has: straight-line drives, board battles and net-front weight. It punishes the east-west possession game that stranded him in Belarus.
Kazan is not a soft landing either.
Ak Bars reached the 2026 Gagarin Cup final before losing to Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, and it has recruited Canadians before, adding Wyatt Kalynuk and Brendan Biro in 2025.
Kane's stated priority is a 17th NHL season after 13 goals and 18 assists in 71 games for the Vancouver Canucks, who acquired him from the Edmonton Oilers for a fourth-round pick in June 2025.
The problem is the calendar.
A KHL deal runs until spring, so taking one does not preserve his NHL options - it removes them for a full year.
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