Getty Connor McDavid #97 and Evander Kane #91 of the Edmonton Oilers speak
Following a late-season injury scare after Edmonton Oilers’ superstar Connor McDavid missed three games a week from the playoffs, another Edmonton forward revealed on Sunday, April 21, that he’s dealing with a sports hernia.
Evander Kane practiced with the rest of his teammates one day before the Oilers get their postseason going on April 22 but said he’s “not sure” whether he will be able to face the Los Angeles Kings in Game 1.
“Not sure,” Kane told reporters following practice on Sunday, April 21. “It’s nice to finally get a little bit of rest. I’ve been dealing with a sports hernia kind of all year.
“It was just getting worse and worse, so I thought it would be good to take a week off for the playoffs and see how I feel.”
Kane missed the final three games of the Oilers’ regular-season schedule, and he said on Sunday that was mostly due to lead managing and trying to heal, to some extent, his injury.
Before that, the NHL handed Kane a $5,000 fine, the maximum allowable under the current CBA.
Evander Kane Is Suffering Athletic Pubalgia
Although Kane told reporters he wants to play, he couldn’t commit to his availability for Monday’s Game 1 against the Kings to open Edmonton’s first-round playoff series.
Kane is suffering from a sports hernia, which is also known as athletic pubalgia, according to the National Library of Medicine. This is a “common yet poorly defined athletic injury characterized by abdominal and groin pain likely from weakening or tearing of the abdominal wall without evidence of a true hernia.”
It can result in a diminished ability to skate. Neither Kane nor the Oilers have shared any details about when the symptoms started to affect the player or when the injury happened.
Kane simply said he’d been dealing with it “kind of all year,” mentioning he “didn’t feel good” in the April 13 game against Vancouver.
Even with a sports hernia, Kane scored 24 goals (tied for the 90th in the NHL) and contributed 20 assists across 77 games played, for a total of 44 points.
In his three seasons with the Oilers, Kane has scored 62 goals and dished out 49 assists for 111 points in 161 games played. He’s also contributed 16 goals and 6 assists for 22 points in 27 postseason contests.
Oilers Head Coach Kris Knoblauch Expects Kane to Play
Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch expects Kane to play on Monday and to throw him into a bottom-six role in either the third or fourth line of Edmonton’s offense, where he’s been playing, for the most part, this season.
“He’s been on the ice for a while now and we want to make sure that he’s ready to go,” Knoblauch told reporters on April 21.
Knoblauch shared another interesting take on Kane’s availability and his impact on the lineup if he finally returns after missing the last few games of the regular season. Namely, having to remove someone from the forward corps to make room for him on the wing.
“We’ve got a lot of guys who are playing well,” Knoblauch said. “We’re going to be taking somebody out, which is going to be tough, but when we have Evander and he’s able to play and he’s healthy, we want him in the lineup.”
The @EdmontonOilers today at practice:
Henrique-McDavid-Hyman
RNH-Draisaitl-Foegele
Holloway-McLeod-Perry
Kane-Carrick-Janmark
Gagner-Ryan-Brown
Ekholm-Bouchard
Nurse-Ceci
Kulak-Desharnais
Stecher
Skinner
Pickard
On Sunday’s practice, Kane lined up in the fourth line along with Sam Carrick and Mattias Janmark, according to Sportsnet’s Bob Stauffer. He was also part of the team’s second power-play unit.
The Oilers are facing the Kings for the third time in as many years after matching up with Los Angeles in 2022 and 2023 and beating them in back-to-back playoffs.