The blatant honesty may come as more of a surprise than the information itself.
“I asked for a trade every off-season in Winnipeg,” Evander Kane told Ken Campbell of The Hockey News for a November magazine article.
Trade rumours regarding the young sniper swirled for years in Winnipeg, and Kane told the outlet that he was never a good fit with the Jets. He said he made his first trade request in the summer of 2012, on the heels of his breakout 30-goal campaign.
Kane’s wishes for a trade were reiterated in the 2013 and 2014 off-seasons.
The matter finally came to a hilt in February 2015, and Kane (along with defenceman Zach Bogosian and goalie Jason Kasdorf) was dealt to the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for Tyler Myers, Drew Stafford, Joel Armia, Brendan Lemieux and a first-round draft pick.
While with the Jets, Kane had come under scrutiny for some of the photos he posted on social media, most memorably his Floyd Mayweather spoof — using a stack of cash as a phone.
“There are a lot of guys I could point to that everybody knows publicly who have done a lot worse or been accused of doing a lot worse things than I have,” Kane told THN, “but they don’t look like me. They don’t look like me.”
Jets players were asked to respond to Kane’s most recent comments.
“We’re having a great time in here, and we’ve moved on. Maybe he should too,” captain Andrew Ladd told reporters.
“We’re an open group, and if we have any issues, I think we take care of it as a group. We don’t have any issues.”
Kane has been sidelined four to six weeks with a knee injury suffered Saturday night, but he should be back for Jan. 10, when the Sabres travel to Winnipeg for his return game.
