Canucks Trade Rumors: 3 Teams Linked to Evander Kane

While all the buzz leading up to the trade deadline around the Vancouver Canucks centers around Elias Pettersson, swapping out the beleaguered center and his long-term $11.6M AAV would be a complicated deal to pull off.

But according to insider Chris Johnson on TSN's Insider Trading, the Canucks' next deal will not be so difficult to arrange:

A much more straightforward transaction that we could see the Canucks complete relatively soon here involves Evander Kane, a pending unrestricted free agent who did receive a fair amount of interest in discussions that were held over the break.

He then goes on to name three teams in particular who would be interested, and have, in fact, reached out already:

Now that the Olympic freeze has lifted and trades are allowed to happen again, the expectation is that Kane will be moved on to a team with playoff aspirations. Those like the Carolina Hurricanes, Tampa Bay Lightning, Dallas Stars, among others, have at least inquired here, and it shouldn’t be a high cost with Kane potentially having half his salary retained by the Canucks.

Kane is playing out the string on his four-year deal with a $5.13 million cap hit. If Vancouver retains $2.5 million of that, he becomes eminently affordable, even for cap-strapped teams.

3 Teams leading the charge for Evander Kane pursuit

The Hurricanes are looking to boost their forward group, and while a bigger swing is quite possible with this team, as it is every year, adding a physical presence up front like Kane is something this lineup could use.

The Lightning are also a serious contender to come out of the East, and it would be easy to see them looking at adding the kind of grit that Kane can provide for the playoff run.

The Stars, as always, never take their foot off the gas in pursuing all the help they need ahead of the deadline. They have been held up by many insiders as a team that will be a pursuer of Kane.

The fiery forward himself admits he'd welcome a chance to join a real contender.

“I think for most pending UFAs on a team that's basically out of the playoffs, you know, you’d welcome an opportunity to extend your season past the regular season," said Kane.

He has always been a strong playoff performer, with 32 goals and 388 hits in 97 career postseason games.