Patrick Kane's free agency saga is reportedly down to just two teams
Photo credit: Danny Wild-Imagn Images
Patrick Kane still hasn't signed, and the read on his two finalists has the hockey logic almost exactly backward.
Scott Powers reports the Blackhawks and Sabres both remain live options, and neither has shut the door yet.
The easy story writes itself. Buffalo just won the Atlantic and Chicago finished near the bottom, so one looks like a Cup chase and the other a sentimental send-off.
Strip the romance out and the roles swap. The team that supposedly needs Kane least has the clearer job for him, and the nostalgic option has a hole in it this week.
Buffalo's luxury is actually a need
The Sabres finished 50-23-9, yet their power play ranked 20th in the NHL, a real drag on a 109-point team. That is not a group adding Kane for the fun of it.
They also let Alex Tuch leave, subtracting their most-used forward and a chunk of top-six scoring. A left-shot playmaker who lives on the half-wall is a targeted repair, not a passenger.
Kane is 37, but he put up 57 points and 41 assists in 67 games for Detroit last season. Feeding a power play is the one job that ages the slowest, and it happens to be Buffalo's softest spot.
Chicago's homecoming is missing its centerpiece
The Chicago sell has always been Kane mentoring Connor Bedard while chasing a farewell in the building he made famous. That sell just lost its centerpiece for a while.
Bedard had left shoulder surgery on July 8 and is expected out about four months, which points to a mid-November return. Kane would open his comeback story with no co-star on the ice.
None of this makes Chicago the wrong call, and Kane has never needed the money to decide. It does mean the Sabres offer the cleaner on-ice role right now, whatever the standings imply.
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