They’re seared into memory.īecause Kane was always the man in Chicago. Blackhawks fans can see all those goals - and the showy celebrations that followed - when they close their eyes, too. And, yeah, you get it by scoring an overtime winner in 2010 that nobody else saw to secure a city’s first Stanley Cup in 49 years. You get it by delivering the dagger in Game 6 of the 2015 Stanley Cup Final before a delirious home crowd. You don’t get the nickname “Showtime” by scoring regular-season goals, you get it by posting a hat trick - including the overtime winner - in the decisive game of the Western Conference finals in 2013. Kane’s always been at his best in the playoffs. To have the opportunity to be his teammate and know what he’s capable of on the ice - he showed on the goal he can do some pretty special things.” A lot of us, even me, I looked up to him when I was playing juniors and college. “Guys aren’t starstruck, but when he first walked in the room - that’s Patrick Kane.

“I can only speak good things of what he’s brought to this team and the type of person he’s been in the room, the time he takes with younger players, even to talk,” Rangers captain Jacob Trouba said after the game. And there was Kane, lifting a stick, winning a puck battle, racing in on net, checking to see if Kreider was open for a potential hat trick, and then roofing a backhander for the dagger in the third period. There was Kane, setting up two more Chris Kreider power-play deflection goals in the second period - the go-ahead tally and the goal that followed - with a slick wrister from up top and a slicker little saucer to the side of the net, where Kreider was once again bafflingly left unmarked by the Devils. There was Kane faking out Vanecek, delaying his shot as the Devils goalie desperately leaped across the crease, before making a sneaky centering pass. There was Kane winding up and unleashing a massive one-timer on a power play late in the first period, forcing Vitek Vanecek to go post-to-post to make a terrific save. That was the Kane the Rangers wanted to get. After struggling much of the season to find his swagger with a nagging hip injury, inferior linemates and little motivation as the Blackhawks tanked for ping-pong balls, Kane suddenly went nuclear in his final week in Chicago, all but demanding the Rangers - his chosen destination - trade for him by posting seven goals and three assists in his last four games. Takeaways on the Rangers' Game 2 win over the Devils Five goals and seven assists in 19 regular-season games is perfectly respectable, but it’s not the kind of franchise-altering impact you’re looking for when you give up a potential first-round draft pick to acquire a former Hart Trophy winner, a Conn Smythe winner, a two-time 100-point scorer, a surefire Hall of Famer - “The GOAT American,” in the words of Devils center Jack Hughes, who grew up idolizing and modeling his game on the similarly-statured Kane. A Kane still feeling his way in red, white and blue. They’ve seen a lesser Kane, a more tentative, timid Kane.

Rangers fans haven’t really met that Kane yet. They can close their eyes and see each of those eventualities in vivid detail - the biggest threat in the biggest moments on the biggest stages. Is he going to fire a hard, flat seam pass through a window barely bigger than the puck to the left circle for a one-timer? Is he going to feather a delicate little saucer pass over a stick and to the open backdoor? Is he going to rear back and fire himself? Or is he just going to stand there, waiting, waiting, waiting, until someone finally takes a step in his direction and gets left in the dust by a deft dangle?Ĭhicago fans know that Kane well. A diminutive yet domineering presence on the ice, as unpredictable as he was undefendable. That’s the Kane we remember, the Kane who toyed with and tormented opponents for more than 15 years in the red and black of the Chicago Blackhawks.

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