Patrick Kane can still turn it on when he wants to

If the New York Rangers add Patrick Kane to a roster that already includes Vladimir Tarasenko, the team’s offensive lines will objectively be upgraded with two Stanley Cup champions, particularly Kane who at 34-years-old has shown he can still turn it on this season. However, Kane and Tarasenko are high-end wingers with defensive liabilities, which might be the flaw in the Rangers experiment if they face the New Jersey Devils in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Video Transcript

JULIAN MCKENZIE: As we speak right now– we mentioned all this flurry of activity, and Patrick Kane has not joined the blue shirts in New York yet. I mean, it seems like it’s going to be a foregone conclusion. How do we feel about Patrick Kane, the New York Ranger?

Is this cool? Is not cool? Do they need Patrick Kane? I like it because I like chaos, but some people feel like they might be loaded enough already and maybe they just don’t need it.

OMAR: It’s going to be a justifiable fleecing, and I can’t wait to see the return. It’s going to be like a conditional fifth.

[LAUGHTER]

Zero leverage. Zero leverage. Zero.

ARUN SRINIVASAN: I think it’s curious they got Kane after they got Tarasenko. I mean–

OMAR: Exactly.

ARUN SRINIVASAN: They might be the players that are the most identical to each other in the whole league in the way they play. I mean, Kane, obviously, has a higher ceiling, and he’s shown he can turn it on. I mean, that first game he played against Toronto, I was there, and he didn’t care. And then four days later, he scores a hat trick. And now he’s had 7 goals and 10 points in his last four games.

Kane can still turn it on when he wants to. Tarasenko, I’m not sure. But they’re both high-end offensive wingers who have name value recognition that sort of exceeds what they are currently. And they’re both highly defensively negligent. They don’t play a lick of defense out of those dudes. So for all this– we can into the war of attrition and playoff grittiness and all of that. And both these guys have won cups.

But are the Rangers harder to play against? No. Do they have three scoring lines? Yeah. And now the last 20 games of the season is just going to be an experiment as to what lines are working. Because correct me if I’m wrong, you have the kid line in place, but it feels like they haven’t had any continuity with their lines this year.

So we’ll see what happens. But they got two highly offensive gifted players who play no defense at all, and that could get them killed against the Devils, I think.