Forget being unwilling to include Jake Virtanen and Bo Horvat, the Vancouver Canucks were probably never even in the same ballpark as the Buffalo Sabres in their pursuit of embattled Winnipeg Jets forward Evander Kane.

A Kane trade between the Sabres and Jets has been consummated and, according to Darren Dreger, will involve Tyler Myers, Drew Stafford, Joel Armia, Brendan Lemieux, and a 1st-round pick in exchange for Zach Bogosian and Kane. 

That’s such a blockbuster that the prospective trade recently filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection…

Read on past the jump.

Not only is this trade close to going down, but Vancouver reportedly bowed out:

That’s understandable. The Canucks don’t have the chips to even sit at the table with a Sabres team thats spent the past four years amassing future assets. 

It’s also disappointing. The Canucks were reportedly debating going all-in for Kane, but were reluctant to weaken their relatively strong playoff chances. Looking at the reported return the Jets are seemingly about to net for Kane though, even if the Canucks had been willing to push their stack into the middle of the table here, it’s hard to imagine that it would’ve been enough to get it done. 

UPDATE: ESPN and TSN’s Pierre LeBrun reports that the Canucks did “go down the path” on trying to pry Kane out of Winnipeg, but were informed by the Jets that they were going to complete a larger deal this morning. 

Simply put, if the Sabres or Capitals were in on Kane, and they were, it’s likely that Vancouver didn’t have the assets to keep up. If there’s any silver lining here it’s that, at the very least, it’s good to know that Vancouver’s usual “character” dogma didn’t prevent them from chasing a player of Kane’s abilities.