In Elliotte Friedman’s weekly gossip segment on Hockey Night in Canada, the insider reported that the Washington Capitals are “considering” signing troubled forward Evander Kane, which is a horrible idea.

Kane, 30, has not played since May of last year and drenched in controversy since, including sexual assault and battery allegations, forging a vaccine passport, and gambling problems.

From Sportsnet:

“Another team who has at least discussed it and considered [signing Kane] is the Washington Capitals”, Friedman said. “There’s nothing done. No contact or nothing like that, but they’re another team in addition to the Oilers who have looked into this.”

San Jose terminated Kane’s contract earlier this month. Though the NHLPA is pursuing a grievance about that termination, Kane is now technically a free agent.

The Capitals, have struggled lately, going 4-4-2 in their last ten games prior to Saturday. Irrelevant to the first-order matter of the player’s established pattern of lying and abuse, Kane’s individual ability to drive games is not remotely what it used to be. Here’s a graph from HockeyViz, which, again, does not matter in context of the player’s profound character problems.

The team surely must be unaware of the degree of fan revolt they would face if they hire this person.

January 24 update: Friedman discussed the Evander Kane situation on his 32 Thoughts podcast.

“The league is not tipping its hand on this,” Friedman said. “Last week some teams thought they were gonna find out; they didn’t…The league is being pretty quiet about what they know.

“If he can play, I think it’s probably Edmonton and Washington, if Washington’s in.”

Headline photo: Sportsnet