2/13/23 | On 32 Thoughts, Elliotte Friedman said of Kane and the Rangers “there were people out there who thought it was Rangers or nothing, that he was Rangers or he was nothing. When those quotes came out, people were texting me ‘see, see, see, I told you it’s Rangers or nothing.'”

Friedman added “I think there were two factors here with the Rangers, one that doesn’t get as much reported, that is, because of Kane’s number, he makes $3 million more a year than Tarasenko does in terms of a cap hit. Even banking space, like the Rangers had been, they would have had to wait until later to make the move for Kane or they would have had to pay another team to do it. They went after Tarasenko because of the fit, the health of Kane and they also knew that because of Kane’s number they would have had to wait to do it longer and I don’t think they wanted to do that.”

2/10/23 | 1:30 PM: Patrick Kane spoke on Friday about the Rangers acquisition of Vladimir Tarasenko and said that “It’s not like the happiest I’ve been to hear about a trade.” (Lazerus, Roumeliotis)

He added that the Rangers are a team that you “definitely pay attention to and are intrigued by, for obvious reasons” and that if “things are going to happen, that was a team I was definitely looking at.” (Lazerus, Roumeliotis)

Kane continued “it seems like they kind of filled their void and went ahead and made a deal.” (Lazerus)

He also said that he hasn’t yet decided on what he wants to do in terms of staying or leaving Chicago and that, in terms of his hip injury, he feels better than he did last season. (Lazerus, Roumeliotis)

It was reported yesterday that the Rangers didn’t want to wait for Kane to make his decision and that they had some concerns about his hip.

Puck Pedia tweets that if the Rangers sent down players like Libor Hajek and Julien Gauthier today, or if they were claimed on waivers, that they would have around $2.8 million in deadline cap space and that the cap hit for Patrick Kane if he was traded by Chicago, retaining 50% of his cap hit, to another team and that other team retained 50% of his cap hit and traded him to the Rangers, would be $2.625 million.

Adam Rotter: My guess is that if Patrick Kane had made his decision to leave Chicago and wanted to be a Ranger than he would have been a Ranger. But Kane hasn’t officially decided yet and Chris Drury couldn’t or wouldn’t wait another week or so for Kane to decide to make up his mind.

The speculation was always that the Rangers were going to be at the top of Kane’s list of teams and his comments today certainly make that seem true. But his health, hip issue and indecision, which is understandable since he has spent his entire career in Chicago, all worked against him and have likely ended that

Now, do I think the Rangers will explore the idea of still acquiring Kane and getting his cap hit double retained? Probably, but that would be a lot of assets (to get Kane himself and then to pay another team to retain half his cap hit) and moving pieces to make work. They could probably do it, but it would probably cost them their first round pick and then a variety of prospects or picks to make all the retention work.  Another way it could possibly work, though in a much different way, would be if someone key got injured and was going to miss the rest of the season, the Rangers could go into LTIR to potentially make it work.

Even with those options, it seems extremely unlikely that Kane will end up as a Ranger this season.