The Daily Faceoff Show: Evander Kane Suspension Looms Large Over Sharks

It’s been nearly 24 hours since San Jose Sharks forward Evander Kane was suspended for 21 games and reaction around the league keeps pouring in.

“It’s obviously disappointing, but it’s out of my control, it’s out of our control,” Sharks forward Logan Couture said Tuesday as head coach Bob Boughner added it would be a decision from a management and ownership if Kane were to rejoin the league.

And on Tuesday’s edition of The Daily Faceoff Show, Frank Seravalli and Steve Greely dove into the news a bit more.

Seravalli: This is a really interesting situation. There’s a lot of layers to this, but the suspension only comes for one thing and that’s for submitting a fake vaccination card. It would’ve put the whole San Jose Sharks team as well as their families at risk. Given all that’s gone on — my reporting back in June about him being persona non grata in the Sharks locker-room, the gambling allegation, the domestic abuse allegation that the NHL said yesterday could not be substantiated — all that has piled up to a spot that has left the Sharks in a really uncomfortable position. My question to you is: has Evander Kane played his last game in a Sharks uniform?

Greely: Well Frank, I think what yesterday did was it created a little clarity for the San Jose Sharks. Some of the accusations were not substantiated, and today what I would expect the Sharks to be doing: they now know how long the suspension. The length of the suspension will provide opportunity for San Jose to have ownership meetings with management, management with coaches, coaches bringing in the leadership group from the players. That’s what I think is kind of starting now and they have a timeline. They know it’s 21 game, it’s 5-6 weeks. Right now, I would anticipate San Jose is diving deep into the what’s next with Evander. The clarity provided in the cap space, he’s not on the cap for 21 games. There’s a lot of things San Jose was able to find out. Evander Kane came out himself and had his apologies and said he wants to be back playing. I think the Sharks have a lot of talking to do internally to figure out.

In the end, we don’t know what’s next because I don’t think San Jose does. That’s something in due time we’re gonna have some answers. I think San Jose will keep this close to the vest and keep talking internally for as long as they can, which we know is a 5-6 week period.

Seravalli: My guess is at this point some of those meetings have been on going for a little while. Will they move to terminate the contract? Is this something where they say “hey, stay home and we’ll figure it out”? Who knows, but I just have a hard time believing that after all that’s gone on, it’s going to be tough to bring Evander Kane back and have him put on that jersey again.