Evan’s Daily: Wild NHL News Day, Kane Signs, Perry Waived

A lot of days, I struggle to find enough NHL news to make a daily, especially once the season gets going. The league decided to make my job easy today, because Tuesday was one of the crazier days in recent memory around the NHL.

The day started with Patrick Kane deciding what team he was going to sign with, and obviously, it wasn’t the Colorado Avalanche. While they touched base, they were never the favorites, especially when it became clear that Kane wanted to play in the East. Kane will joining J.T. Compher and the Detroit Red Wings.

As if that wasn’t big enough news, the Chicago Blackhawks waived Corey Perry with the intention of terminating his contract, but they sure waited a while to squash an ugly rumor.

Even with all this news, there were still NHL games to be played, so there’s that as well.

Colorado Hockey Now

The Avalanche are getting a peek into what a confident Jonathan Drouin looks like right now, while Bowen Byram continues to struggle with penalties.

Against the Lightning, the penalty kill for the Avalanche shut down a dominant powerplay unit, with some help from their goaltender. (+)

On Tuesday, the Avalanche held an optional practice. Very optional. The only players present were Nathan MacKinnon, Drouin, Kurtis MacDermid, Caleb Jones, Tomas Tatar, and both goalies. They’ll be back on the ice Wednesday before traveling to Arizona. CHN will also be in Arizona to cover Thursday’s game.

You can get a subscription to CHN+ for $29.99 a year with the code “evan10” and get access to the + content on every site in the network. In addition to the + content, everything will be ad-free.

Kane Chooses Detroit

Patrick Kane has finally chosen his team, and it’s the Detroit Red Wings. On Tuesday, he signed a one year, $2.75 million deal that is prorated to when he starts playing. Smart of the Red Wings to not go beyond a year, because quite frankly, there should be a lot more questions around his ability to come back from the surgery he had. It’s far from a slam dunk.

The Red Wings are off to a strong start this year, which helped them attract Kane, but another reason why Kane chose them is Alex Debrincat. They’ll likely be reunited on a line together.

This wasn’t the only big NHL news of the day, though.

The Corey Perry Situation

What a cluster this situation has been. First, the Chicago Blackhawks announced that Perry was scratched due to an “organization decision.” Then his agent came out and said he had stepped away from the team for personal reasons.

On Tuesday, the Blackhawks waived Corey Perry with the purpose of terminating his contract. Here was their original statement…

“After an internal investigation, the Chicago Blackhawks have determined that Corey Perry has engaged in conduct that is unacceptable, and in violation both of the terms of his Standard Player’s Contract and the Blackhawks’ internal policies intended to promote professional and safe work environments. As such, Corey Perry has been placed on unconditional waivers. In the event Mr. Perry clears waivers, we intend to terminate his contract effective immediately.”

Later in the day, their GM, Kyle Davidson, addressed “those” rumors that had been going around.

“However I do want to be very clear on this one point,” Davidson said. “This does not involve any players or their families and anything that suggests otherwise, or anyone that suggests otherwise, is wildly inaccurate, and frankly, it’s disgusting.”

Davidson only described the incident as a “workplace matter.”

Now the question will be – will another NHL team touch Perry with a 10-foot pole? After all this drama, and given his age, has he played his final NHL game? This league has a lot of teams run by very forgivable people, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see him sign with another team soon. I wouldn’t want him, though.

National Hockey Now

Remember Will Butcher? The former Avalanche draft pick is still kicking around in the NHL, but maybe not for long. The Pittsburgh Penguins waived him on Tuesday.

The Boston Bruins are looking for another defenseman. Nikita Zadorov would fit in nicely on that team.

Paul Maurice was not happy after the Florida Panthers lost in a shootout.

Don’t look now, but the Vegas Golden Knights have lost 8 of their last 11. Don’t hear a lot of people talking about it, though.

They’ve fallen behind in the competitive East, so the New Jersey Devils are in the trade market for a goaltender.