More teams showing interest in Hawks' Patrick Kane

With Vladimir Tarasenko now off the market following his trade earlier this week, Blackhawks winger Patrick Kane is starting to generate more attention. Earlier this week, he was linked to the Stars and the Rangers (with New York likely out of the picture now following the Tarasenko deal). Three more teams have been added to that mix as Scott Powers and Mark Lazerus of The Athletic report (subscription link) that the Hurricanes, Wild, and Golden Knights have confirmed interest in the veteran.

Of course, it must also be noted that Kane might not necessarily have an interest in any of those teams. The 34-year-old has a full no-move clause in his deal and if he decides that he’s willing to waive it, it’s expected that the shortlist of options he’d provide Chicago with would be quite small, not unlike what happened with Claude Giroux last season when he okayed a trade from Philadelphia.

Carolina, Minnesota, and Vegas all have a fair amount of cap space which presents an opportunity where they might not need a third team to be involved to retain an extra 25% of the $10.5M contract, assuming Chicago retains 50% as expected. For the Hurricanes, Max Pacioretty’s season-ending Achilles injury opened up $7M in LTIR room while the Golden Knights have plenty of room (at least for the time being) with Mark Stone and his $9.5M eligible for LTIR; he hasn’t been placed there just yet. Meanwhile, Minnesota has banked enough cap space (per CapFriendly) that they could absorb Kane’s contract outright.

What’s notable about these suitors – including Dallas from earlier – is that all of them project to be short-term options only for Kane.  With their existing commitments for next season, there’s basically no way they could afford the 16-year veteran at market value.  Would Kane want to go somewhere as a strict rental and then hit the open market in July or might his preference be to land with a team that has the intention to keep him for 2023-24 and beyond?  That will certainly be a question he ponders over the next couple of weeks before notifying Chicago of his intentions.