If the New Jersey Devils want to add an affordable scoring winger who's near and dear to Jack Hughes, they don't need to look further than Patrick Kane.
Kane, 36, isn't the 100-point player he used to be, but still put up 21 goals, 38 assists, and 59 points in 72 games on a Detroit Red Wings team that finished 28th in the NHL in 5-on-5 goals and 22nd in goals per game. The Devils (26th and 20th, respectively) weren't much better, but that's where Kane comes in.
We all know how great Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt have been together, and ditto for Nico Hischier and Timo Meier. The third players on those lines have just been revolving doors for the last few years.
Ondrej Palat, for example, has scored just 26 goals and 59 points over the last two seasons for the Devils, whereas Kane, even at his age, can still do that in one year, if not better.
Overall, Palat had just 28 points this season, which was comfortably the worst of his NHL career over a full season.
Kane, unlike Palat, is more of a finesse player and isn't going to be the player going into corners and getting to the net with any type of frequency. But that's not Hughes's game, either, and when those guys do play with Hughes, they don't produce, just like Palat hasn't.
The Devils' emphasis on getting bigger, stronger, and tougher has done nothing but backfire; their bottom-six was way too slow and unskilled to make an impact all season long, and especially so in the playoffs.
Could Patrick Kane finally give Jack Hughes two solid wingers pairing with Jesper Bratt?
Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald already took one step towards correcting that issue by offloading the aging and increasingly ineffective Erik Haula to Nashville, and all signs suggest Palat is next on the chopping block on July 1.
The Devils have already inked talented Russian prospect Arseniy Gritsyuk to his entry-level contract, and they can take things one step further by adding a talent in Kane.
Hughes has long idolized Kane and the two have bonded through training and career similarities, and the two, along with Luke Hughes and Quinn Hughes, recently starred in a series of videos for Bauer Hockey. Coincidence?
If and when Palat leaves, the Devils will still want a veteran voice in their top-six, and Kane, who can follow the performance bonus-laden Claude Giroux contract, is still plenty capable of doing just that.
And, if the Devils insist on adding size in addition to Kane, they'll have their options. New Jersey native James van Riemsdyk can still hack it, as can ageless wonder Corey Perry.
But the Devils will go nowhere so long as they score as infrequently they did in the second half of last season, and that's why an experienced star like Patrick Kane is a wise bet for them at this point in the team's timeline.