Free agent: Patrick Kane’s real value is questionable

Patrick Kane will find himself on the free agent market this summer. He has just completed the final year of the big contract he signed with the Chicago Blackhawks.

Where will he play next year? And given that he could undergo surgery this summer but not be ready for the start of next season, how much is he worth?

These are popular questions right now, because there’s still a lot of uncertainty. Everything will depend on his state of health, and it will also depend on his operation, should he decide to go under the knife.

I mentioned it in a recent text this week, but AFP Analytics, an advanced statistics firm that provides specific contract projections, has carried out the exercise of projecting data concerning the next contracts of the top 50 free agents for the summer.

At the time, I was talking about the fact that AFP Analytics had Jonathan Drouin and Sean Monahan on $2 million salaries next season…

And in Kane’s case, the projection of his next contract is interesting at 3 years / $5.75 M per year.

Some will say it’s not much, others will think it’s too much, given that he’s “slowing down” as time goes by…

And then again, you have to ask yourself whether the projection in question is logical.

In reality, Patrick Kane is still an excellent field hockey player.

He collected just 57 points last season with the Hawks and Rangers… But let’s not forget that the year before, he accumulated 92 points on a team that struggled for the entire season.

The American still has some good field hockey to give to a National League team, and there’s no one who’s going to change my mind about that. Especially since Kane, at 34, isn’t necessarily old as a dinosaur.

You know as well as I do that he has what it takes to still be successful in the NHL. Offensively, he’s been one of the most dominant players on the planet for the past fifteen years, and I don’t think his recent “difficult” season in terms of statistics is scaring off the various GMs on the Bettman circuit.

Then again: let’s not forget that last year, he was playing in Chicago… And he was alone in the world there with Max Domi. The rest of the team wasn’t great, let’s put it that way.

So, anyway…

As I said at the beginning of this text, I really feel that this will come down to the details of his actual state of health. If he undergoes surgery in the next few months and misses several months of activity, chances are he’ll sign a short-term contract to prove he still has value in the NHL.

He’ll be one of the most interesting players to watch this summer, that’s for sure.

Breaking news

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