- Kane might be toast? He has a career low 33.3 CF% 5 on 5 this year. We are also getting outshot badly at 5 on 5 when he is on the ice (80 shots against compared to 45 shots for). I think we should look at moving him at the deadline, I am guessing some teams will be interested.
I think the offensive touch is still there, but it's his speed and effort level that are killing his overall usefulness. In many years of watching hockey I've seen few players give so little effort in any situation that isn't an offensive one. Defensively he will watch opposing puck-carriers skate around him with barely a gesture towards them, let alone hustling to get in their space and battle. His body language makes it clear that when he isn't on the attack in the offensive zone, he couldn't give two shits. Doesn't help that he's lost a lot of speed and explosiveness.
It was one thing doing that when he was a superstar in his prime, don't need to play defence if you've always got the puck after all. But now that he can't do that anymore, his deficiencies come to the fore. That's a big part of why I agreed with you in the lineup thread in terms of putting Kane on the 3rd line. He's a pure offensive specialist at this point, a more talented Sprong. Put him out there on the PP and a scoring 3rd line getting sheltered minutes and he's useful, put him on the top lines playing big minutes and those deficiencies get exposed against opponents' top lines.
If we can get some good value out of his reputation and his ability to bolster a contender as a scoring threat, by all means we should take advantage of that at the deadline (or earlier).