Verified NHL Insider says the Leafs are among the top 3 teams inquiring on Patrick Kane
On today's Daily FaceOff podcast, Frank Seravalli reported that Patrick Kane won't be dealt before the season begins. Seravalli, like many others, believe that Kane prefers to wait until the season begins and see how things start for the now rebuilding Hawks before accepting a trade. Seravalli also noted that the Rangers, Oilers and Leafs have all had at least preliminary discussions about Kane.
For any of these teams to trade for Kane, the Hawks would have to retain a fair amount of Kane's $10.5M salary for this season and quite possibly take money back as well. The Oilers are more than $6M over the cap, the Leafs are $1.5M over with Rasmus Sandin still to sign and the Rangers have just north of $1M in cap room. For the Leafs, the most obvious player to move here is Kerfoot and his $3.5M cap hit this season. Kerfoot is only owed $750K in actual cash which could be appealing to Chicago. Another option is for the Leafs is to trade William Nylander and his $6.9M cap hit. Doubt that happens for a rental though.
Given that Kane won't be moved until the season starts and likely not until the deadline, the asking price may drop a little bit, but for a player coming off of a 92-point season, I would expect it to still involved a high-end prospect and possibly multiple picks.
The closer to the deadline a trade for Kane happens, the lower the asking price will go given that he is in the final year of his deal. Unless of course, he agrees to some sort of sign and trade like Matthew Tkachuk did, but that is unlikely.
It will be an intriguing first few months of the season in Chicago as we watch and dissect every comment made by Kane and Jonathan Toews who may also accept a trade. Only time will tell if they want to mentor the Hawks' young players or not, but that seems doubtful with the comments Toews made throughout the offseason thus far.
