6 Best Offseason Free-Agent Landing Spots for Rangers Winger Patrick Kane

This will be a summer eight years in the making, the one when Patrick Kane hits unrestricted free agency.

Kane has been an elite scorer and playmaker throughout his career and is arguably the greatest American player in NHL history. The eight-year, $84 million contract he signed back in 2014 is done. He's 34 years old and will turn 35 in November as he keeps climbing the all-time scorers list and tries to win another Stanley Cup.

It's an awkward time for Kane to hit the open market. Before Chicago traded him to the New York Rangers, talk of whether his hip was in good shape was all the rage. As it turns out, his hip is injured, and it's been nagging him for two years. He may or may not require surgery.

Still, Kane trails only Brett Hull and Mike Modano on the all-time scoring list for American players and is 41st overall. He's a legend already and future Hall of Famer. These are all solid marketing reasons to sign him, but there are questions about his play after his down performance this season.

However, he is going to land somewhere in free agency. We're getting out ahead of things and picking six teams that would make sense for both sides. Whether it's because of a club's need for scoring, its luxury ability to add someone of his caliber or a desperation play to catch lightning in a bottle, Kane makes sense in these spots...or at least we'll make it make sense.

It feels like a gimme that the Rangers will be the ones to sign Kane because he checks a lot of boxes that are particular to the franchise.

New York making a splash for a big-name player is as classic a play as anything in hockey. Competing for that entertainment dollar in Manhattan is a cutthroat business, and marquee names go a long way. Think of the players the Rangers have brought in later on in their careers: Wayne Gretzky, Pavel Bure, Jaromír Jágr, Guy Lafleur, Marcel Dionne, Jari Kurri, Glenn Anderson...the list goes on and on. No one loves stars like New York City loves stars, and Kane is still a star.

What makes sense about this is the Rangers made the move to add him this season. It's obvious, but it means a lot, especially since Kane didn't want to go anywhere else. Familiarity goes a long way, and even though Kane played only 19 regular-season games and seven more in the playoffs, it laid the groundwork for a future relationship.

Kane showed he makes sense on the Rangers power play and can distribute the puck close to the way he always has. The mystery of how he'll play following whatever gets done with his hip makes things murky, but New York knows full well what's going on there and can plan accordingly. It already has a strong lineup, and Kane can enrich that with his offensive game. Add in that it won't cost $10 million per season to re-sign him, and it makes things even easier.

Here's a wild idea: How about Kane with the Boston Bruins?

The Bruins' offseason is wrought with questions about whether or not Patrice Bergeron will retire or return, and the same applies to David Krejci. They've got a lot of other unrestricted free agents, including Tyler Bertuzzi and Dmitry Orlov, and a lot of answers to find following their first-round upset loss to the Florida Panthers.

If Bergeron and Krejci hang it up and Bertuzzi signs somewhere else, apart from Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak, where in the world is the offense going to come from? Free agency isn't exactly teeming with great ideas, and their AHL team in Providence can only provide so much help. Desperate times could lie ahead, which would open the door for Kane to slide into the lineup.

Kane with a repaired or rehabilitated hip could look more like the player who just last season tallied 26 goals and 92 points. Time gets skewed easily, but he's not far removed from that great season. His defensive game isn't very good these days, but the Bruins play stellar defense and could cover for what he lacks.

While Kane won't demand a ransom in his next contract, Boston will be rather tight to the salary cap because of $4.5 million in bonus overages. Getting a player who can still produce at a discount is something the Bruins will have to look into doing no matter what, but next season it'll be priority No. 1.

The Dallas Stars were rumored to be interested in Kane ahead of the trade deadline, and when there's interest in a trade, it stands to reason there would be interest later on when it means just spending money.

Dallas' interest in Kane was peculiar to say the least, but if viewed through the lens of "whatever it takes," it made all the sense. The Stars had no problem scoring goals (seventh in the league), and their power play was fifth-best. Dallas traded for Evgenii Dadonov a week ahead of the deadline instead, and that has worked out well.

The Stars will have a boatload of unrestricted free agents this summer, and depending on how far they get in the playoffs, that will determine a lot about who stays and who goes. In free agency, however, all it takes is presenting a great situation and a pleasing contract, and the Stars can do both for Kane.

Dallas will have more than $7 million in cap space and a place in the lineup with a team that's on the rise and a Stanley Cup contender right now. The Stars aren't the Stars of old that ground teams up and defended before doing anything else. These Stars score a lot of goals, and that leans into Kane's talents.

On paper, it makes sense if there's an opportunity to bring him aboard.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are down bad. They're down really bad.

They fired general manager Ron Hextall and team president Brian Burke, don't have a GM in place and are coming off a massively disappointing season in which they missed the playoffs for the first time since 2006. Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang aren't getting younger, and Jason Zucker, Brian Dumoulin, and Tristan Jarry will be unrestricted free agents July 1.

Things might get worse before they get better, but if the Penguins are trying to find a player who has superstar credentials and can help them score goals, Kane makes sense. Even if they bring back those three aforementioned players, he'd still make sense because Pittsburgh needs scoring help.

The Pens ranked 16th in scoring, just as they finished in the soft middle in allowing goals (19th). They need to be better on defense, yes, but they have zero depth up front, something that was apparent as they stumbled to the end of the season.

The lack of depth is mostly because they gave away draft picks like candy and have not developed well. But Kane could help keep the machine moving while Pittsburgh still has its Big Three, adding another experienced veteran to tag along. And, should his hip get healthy, he could get back to the scoring form he showed just a year ago to give the Penguins a puncher's chance in the Eastern Conference.

As much as the Rangers love having star power, the Vegas Golden Knights demand it, and mixing Patrick Kane into their forward group would give them another big name to put in lights outside of T-Mobile Arena.

Vegas isn't slated to have a ton of cap space this summer, but when has that ever stopped it from making a move? The Knights have a handful of forwards hitting free agency this summer, including Ivan Barbashev and Phil Kessel. While Kessel has slipped out of the lineup, the thought of adding Kane into the mix with Mark Stone and Jack Eichel is tantalizing.

Vegas was strong at preventing goals but was middle-of-the-pack on offense and below-average on the power play. The latter two issues are ones that Kane could help address right away. Having someone to help make plays on the man advantage has to be at the front of the mind of management in the offseason whether the Knights win the Stanley Cup or not, and being on a contender would appeal to Kane.

Vegas demands attention considering its home on the Strip, and while winning is helping the franchise out, adding a future Hall of Fame player like Kane would be like bringing a major act to one of the casinos. This would be the one and only time you'd see Kane mentioned alongside Celine Dion or Britney Spears or Wayne Newton, so enjoy this moment for what it would be.

Much like the Stars, the Carolina Hurricanes also had interest in Kane before the deadline. It's weird to think that a pair of teams that are still in the Stanley Cup playoffs would feel the need to add anyone already, but listen, we're looking ahead, OK?

The Hurricanes lost Max Pacioretty for the season to an Achilles injury in January. That interest in Kane may have been prescient because they lost Andrei Svechnikov and Teuvo Teravainen to injuries within a couple of weeks of the deadline's passing. With just Pacioretty out, they had concerns about their scoring, and they got exponentially worse after that.

The beauty of the offseason is that injuries are usually healed, and new answers can be found to fill out the lineup. The Hurricanes are one of a handful of teams in which cap space is not a concern, and while Kane's future contract likely won't be a budget-breaker, they could offer the best deal compared to what most teams could afford.

Carolina would also offer one of the best opportunities to get back to the Stanley Cup Final and win another title right away. As much as individual marks mean, winning the Cup means everything. The Hurricanes' style of hockey is intense and leans into offense, and Kane's power-play effectiveness would potentially give a lift to their 19th-ranked unit.