Evander Kane trade grade: Canucks take a swing, Oilers clear cap, but who ends up with the better deal?

Evander Kane is officially a Vancouver Canuck.

The Vancouver native was traded from the Edmonton Oilers to his hometown team Wednesday morning in exchange for a 2025 fourth-round draft pick.

No salary was retained in the deal, allowing Edmonton to shed all $5.125 million remaining on Kane’s contract. It’s a pure cap-clearing move for an Oilers team gearing up to give Evan Bouchard a massive extension while also looking to shuffle a roster that once again fell short in the Stanley Cup Final.

Meanwhile, Vancouver benefits from Edmonton’s cap constraints and acquires a potential impact player — a top-six forward at a relatively low cost.

Let’s take a deeper dive into how each team fared in this trade and what it means for Evander Kane heading into the 2025-26 season.

Evander Kane trade grades

Vancouver Canucks: B

The Vancouver Canucks needed to add more firepower up front, and Evander Kane is a solid start. Having traded away J.T. Miller and likely soon to see Brock Boeser walk in free agency, Vancouver’s forward group had gotten quite thin.

It has become heavily reliant on Elias Pettersson, who’s had his own well-documented struggles in recent years. Assuming he enters next season at full health, this could be a move that pays off in spades for the Canucks.

While he struggled in the finals, Kane jumped onto a moving train after missing the entire 2024-25 regular season and was one of the Oilers’ most productive players outside of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. He should immediately slot in as a top-six winger in Vancouver who can provide goal scoring and physicality.

Edmonton Oilers: B-

From an Oilers standpoint, this move felt inevitable after the Game 6 loss to Florida. Kane was one of the few players floated in trade rumors to create cap space, and that’s exactly what has happened. The sole focus of the move is to shed salary, and the Oilers might have received a better return than some had forecast.

It's hard to be too down on the trade, but this team has always struggled with depth behind its star players, so getting rid of Kane for almost nothing certainly doesn’t help. We’ll have to see how GM Stan Bowman reshapes the rest of the roster to get a better feel for how this deal turns out.

What this means for Evander Kane

Evander Kane generally had a solid run with the Edmonton Oilers. His production was strong for much of his three seasons with the team, and he spent plenty of time riding shotgun with either McDavid or Draisaitl. However, it became clear that things were getting stale and a change was needed, so now he’s heading back home.

Kane won’t have anywhere near the same caliber linemates in Vancouver, though he should see a larger role on a team that is desperate for forward help. Playing for his hometown team in a contract year should also be a spark to push the 33-year-old toward a great 2025-26 season.