Jets captain says team was supportive of Evander Kane

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This article was published 27/10/2015 (3691 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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It was mostly the high road and talk of moving on that came from the Winnipeg Jets Tuesday, presented with the complaints of former teammate Evander Kane.

 

Kane spoke of his former teammates and organization not having “his back” and made another accusation of racism in an interview in this week’s an edition of The Hockey News.

Kane was dealt to the Buffalo Sabres last February.

On the morning of Tuesday’s game day against the Los Angeles Kings, several Jets reacted to the comments.

“I think we’ve moved on here,” Jets captain Andrew Ladd said. “We’ve had a good start to the year. We have a good atmosphere in the room and we’re having a great time. You talk to any guy in this room. We’re an open group. If we have any issues, I think we take care of it as a group. We don’t have any issues.

“Like I said, we’re having a great time in here and we’ve moved on and maybe he should, too.”

Like Ladd, it sounded like Jets coach Paul Maurice sees it all in the past tense.

“It was over the day of the trade for me,” he said. “To answer a few more questions, we’re certainly not using that as an excuse when the puck drops tonight.”

No Jets who spoke about the affair said they were surprised at Kane’s comments.

“Does it surprise me? Ladd said. “No, I think he’s an emotional kid. No, I guess it doesn’t.”

“I guess not,” said Blake Wheeler. “There’s not a whole lot that would surprise me. But I’m not spending much of my day thinking about that. I’ve got a lot of bigger things to worry about, most notably the guys sitting in this room and our opponent tonight.

“I firmly believe we’re a family in this room. I’d do anything for any one of these guys in here. I don’t have a brother of my own but I’d consider most of the guys in this room like family to me. I think we’ve got as tight a group as I’ve been a part of in the NHL. It’s the biggest reason we have success on the ice.”

Said Chris Thorburn, who sat next to Kane in the Jets’ locker-room: “It doesn’t surprise me. It’s not bad or good. He had some bottled-up emotions, apparently, it seems like.

“So maybe just getting them off his chest might be healthy for him. At the same time, we’re not going to be concerning ourselves about that, really. We’re concentrating on what we have in this dressing room and going forward that’s our focus.”

Wheeler was asked if the team’s leaders were aware of Kane’s complaints when he was here.

“Things happen a certain way and things have been made very public, which is too bad,” he said. “Any correspondence I would have had with Evander in the past would be between him and I. For me it’s a privilege to be in an NHL dressing room, so I’m not going to air out any dirty laundry of what happened within a dressing room. Because that’s private.

“Yeah, it is frustrating to have to speak about somebody who’s no longer with us. I think the one thing you’ll hear from most of the guys is it’s too bad he feels that way. I’m not inside his head. If you want further comment, you’d have to fly to Buffalo to get more out of that.”

Maurice had said Monday he, for one, appreciated Kane frequently played with and through pain while a member of the Jets, responding to the winger’s complaint he felt “unappreciated.”

Tuesday, Maurice added he was disappointed.

“I’m disappointed that a player who played as many years as Evander did and didn’t enjoy his time in the National Hockey League,” the coach said. “Or the players I coach, I want them to enjoy the experience professionally and away from the rink as much as I am.

“I love coaching here and being in Winnipeg. It’s been a great experience and not every day’s been nice in that locker-room and we get after our problems pretty good here. I want him to enjoy his experience.

“That’s an awfully long time for a young man to be in the NHL and not feel like he enjoyed his experience. And I’m really happy because I think he’s in a place now that he gets to.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

Here's a little tease for next weeks episode of Barstool Sports "The Life" with Evander Kane pic.twitter.com/7yZC2nNlzT

— David Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) October 27, 2015