How Should the Hockey World React If Patrick Kane Maintains His MVP Pace?

This story originally appeared on VICE Sports Canada.

Since the NHL expanded to 12 teams in 1967 and bestowed upon us the meaningless marketing term "Original Six," 13 players have led the league in both goals and points; of the last ten to finish atop the leaderboard in those categories, zero have failed to win the Hart Trophy.

Patrick Kane, he of the dismissed rape allegation earlier this month, is the NHL's foremost goal scorer and point producer as of Nov. 19, making him a logical contender for that award. He's riding a 14-game point streak and has 13 goals and 30 points in 19 contests; that pace would give Kane 129 points, the most in the NHL in 20 years.

The 2015-16 season isn't quite 25 percent over, but if Kane remains healthy and productive, the hockey world is headed toward a season-long MVP debate that will include one of the league's marquee players and his accompanying legal entanglement. Every discussion among PHWA voters and/or fans will at the very least mention or at the very most weigh heavily what may or may not have happened on that August night in Hamburg, New York.

Very soon, websites will post quarter-point and halfway MVP stories that will include Kane. They will very likely either mention the rape investigation in passing or ignore it completely as if it wasn't a dominant narrative throughout training camp, October and even now.

There is also the ongoing investigation being conducted by the NHL that could yield punishment the legal system decided it couldn't mete out, although the odds of the league assigning guilt to a face of the sport when it in no way behooves it to do so are probably long at best. A cloud will continue to hang over Kane for the rest of the season no matter what the NHL concludes. It's just a matter of how and if anyone chooses to acknowledge it while discussing his athletic prowess.

What is the right way to go about this? Is there a right way? How should people handle the silliness that is deciding which adult man wins a trophy for being good at sports along with the seriousness of a sexual assault claim and the life of the alleged victim?

Let's get this out of the way now—a rape accusation that is dismissed by a district attorney over a lack of physical evidence does not mean the accusation was false just like it doesn't mean it was true. It doesn't mean this was made up. It doesn't mean Kane committed a crime. We may never know for sure what occurred but that should not give anyone free reign to disrespect the allegation by scrubbing it from the conversation or doing the worst thing imaginable, which is treating it as a piece of "adversity" Kane had to overcome to excel.

(Side note: I'm willing to bet $20 that I do not wish to win that if Kane is still among the scoring leaders in March, someone will write that he deserves the MVP more than any other candidate because he produced in the early part of the season with a potential trial hanging over his head.)

So what is everyone's responsibility when talking about and voting for the Hart Trophy? As you probably know, the Hart goes to the player "judged to be the most valuable to his team." The vague nature of "value" to a team seems to preclude any sort of off-ice activity, positive or negative, but voters will undoubtedly have Kane's conduct away from the rink on their minds.

Kane vaulted himself to the top of two of the most important offensive categories while this was swirling around him, so it hasn't hurt his value. But what about the value to the team? The Blackhawks sit in a wild-card spot now; if that's the case at season's end, will voters blame the team's below-standard regular-season showing on being "distracted" by Kane? Or will it be something more standard, like the Blackhawks losing Patrick Sharp, Brandon Saad, Johnny Oduya during the offseason?

The subjective terminology will lend itself to thoughts like these over the next five months, thoughts the NHL won't want anyone to have publicly for the all-important reasons related to reputation and brand. Considering how the league spent the offseason ignoring the investigation on its website until Kane held the world's most awkward press conference at training camp, it shouldn't be surprising if it does the same over the rest of the season.

Kane's brilliance on the ice, especially this season, has been undeniable. Without him, the Blackhawks would be looking up at that wild-card spot they currently hold. There's a nine-point gap between Kane and the Blackhawks' second-leading scorer Artemi Panarin and a 16-point gap with third-leading scorer Brent Seabrook. The issue for voters will be how they consider the two prominent items he's carried on his back—the Blackhawks and a rape accusation.

There are a few unsavory ways to approach this delicate situation—one is pretending it never happened, another is using it to prop up Kane as if he overcame an injury or recovered from a life-threatening illness. A third is framing the accuser as a liar.

Don't forget what happened. Don't be flippant about what happened. Remember: There are few things in this world more terrifying and overwhelming than bringing forth a charge of rape, and the tone and tenor with which this particular, high-profile case is discussed may affect a victim's decision in the future to either come forward or remain silent.

Choose your words carefully and remember that a district attorney deciding against pressing charges or the NHL deciding not to punish a superstar doesn't mean it's not worth talking about.

As for the whole trophy thing that seems as inconsequential as can be, take a measured approach. If you want to vote for Kane, go for it. If you don't, that's fine, too.