"F*ck around... and find out": Oilers' Kane doubles down on violent Game 2

Edmonton Oilers forward Evander Kane wasn’t exactly in the mood to apologize on Saturday night.

During Edmonton’s 5-1 drubbing of the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 2 of the teams’ second round series yesterday, Kane picked up a total of 24 minutes of penalties on the evening.

The first of Kane’s 14 penalty minutes came in an incident with the Golden Knights’ Keegan Kolesar late in the second period, with the Oilers up 5-0 and following a fight between Edmonton’s Brett Kulak and Vegas’ Brett Howden.

it starts with brett kulak and brett howden scrapping, and ends with evanderkane and keegan kolesar doing the same. pic.twitter.com/150BTwWynS

— zach (@zjlaing) May 7, 2023

Kane landed a series of punches on Kolesar, who did not appear to be retaliating Kane’s actions.

Referee Kelly Sutherland getting out his handy dandy notebook while Evander Kane lands 5 unanswered body shots to Kolesar, lying on his back. pic.twitter.com/TRD2QRfOgB

— Jesse Granger (@JesseGranger_) May 7, 2023

But asked about his incident with Kolesar, Kane wasn’t exactly quick to apologize.

“You don’t see a lot of guys getting jumped from behind and headlocked,” Kane told reporters following the game. “When you want to f*ck** around, sometimes you gotta find out. We get up 5-0 and we know they’re going to try and run around and cause sh*t. Get involved in the game somehow. I thought we did a great job answering there.”

Kane then picked up another ten-minute misconduct with 24 seconds left in the third period, during a brouhaha where six total penalties were awarded in the game’s closing stages. He was held scoreless on the evening, registering five shots on goal, two hits, and a blocked shot in 16:10 of ice time.

Kane picked up 53 penalty minutes across 41 regular season games this year with Edmonton, but he’s more than halfway there with 34 so far through just eight postseason contests this year.

The NHL Department of Player Safety has yet to issue any sort of statement or punishment for Kane (or any of the other actions in the game.)