There's been no indication of Kane being a problem in the Sabres locker room. The only talk has been from posters extrapolating that missing a practice, while certainly dumb and irresponsible, is also a personal affront to teammates. I'm sure players don't like it, but it's a stretch and taking a large amount of gray to say that Sabres players have been personally offended by that and look at Kane as a "cancer". I don't at all doubt the potential for Kane to become that way in Buffalo, but so far that's a non-issue.
All these trade ideas boil down to a) the "nobody wants him" camp and b) the "he's effective on the ice" camp. IMO opinion, on-ice he's most effective as a checking winger and less-so as a top-six fill-in on a scoring line. His on-ice value equates to a 2nd pair D-man, a 2nd rd pick, or a solid B prospect.
Getting that value comes down to how concerned a GM is about the off-ice stuff. In actuality, Kane's off-ice stuff hasn't solidified into anything legally damaging (with this recent case looking weak so far). This isn't to get into a moral debate (I would be heavily against Kane in that regard), but simply to look at the POV of a GM that would be shopping for a LW in the first place. If the bottom line is that Kane doesn't have legal baggage, and only the bad experience in Wpg and a missed practice in Buf, I can see at least a few GMs not being deterred from acquiring him at fair value if he fits their needs.
with players of that value you'd think they'd be a playoff team
