When Evander Kane Will Return to the Oilers

With training camp underway, we’re finally starting to get a look at what teams around the NHL will look like this season.

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For the Edmonton Oilers, it looks as though that won’t include Evander Kane, at least for a while.

According to a report from Mark Spector, Kane will soon undergo surgery for the hernia that caused him to miss five games during the Stanley Cup Final last season. Kane, 33, played in 77 games last season after missing half of 2022-23 with an upper-body injury.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, full recovery from a sports hernia — which is a muscle tear in the lower abdomen and not a real hernia — usually takes six to twelve weeks.

If Kane gets surgery next week, that would put him on track to return anywhere between the end October and the middle of December. If we split the difference and give him a nine-week recovery, he’ll miss the Oilers’ first 20 games.

That tracks with data from the NHL Injury Database. According to the database, there have been 18 instances of sports hernias involving 17 players since 2013-14 (two from Brandon Sutter). I included the initial 31 games missed by Joffrey Lupul in 2015-16, but not the subsequent games he missed after being forced into retirement.

Those 17 players missed an average of just under 24 games, with absences ranging from 9 games to 52. Two years ago, the Jets’ Nikolaj Ehlers missed 36 games recovering from sports hernia surgery.

It’s also important to note that with the NHL’s tendency to generalize all injuries as upper or lower body, this list is surely not comprehensive. Even Kane’s injury during the Stanley Cup Final was listed as an “abdomen” issue.

At any rate, right now it looks like Kane shouldn’t miss more than 25 games, and will be back in the lineup by Christmas.

As for Kane’s performance once he returns, there’s some cause for concern. A 2013 study published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine found that NHL veterans returning from sports hernia surgery often returned at a lower performance level.

As a 15-year veteran with a lengthy injury history, it’s fair to wonder what we can expect from Kane when his recovery time is up.

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