Patrick Kane’s return to Chicago was a storybook evening

Patrick Kane returned to Chicago for the first time since he was traded at last year’s deadline, and he put on a vintage show for the crowd to enjoy, although for the first time it was at the expense of the Blackhawks. He finished the night with two points, including the overtime winner, to extend his point streak to eight, and continue to help the Detroit Red Wings’ playoff push.

Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk talked on Daily Faceoff Live about Kane’s throwback performance, as well as how he’s come into his own with the Red Wings.

Frank Seravalli: During his speech, Chris Chelios crowned Patrick Kane as the best American-born player of all time. Kind of hard to argue with that, although Paul Pidutti had a great story on DailyFaceoff.com last week saying that it’s actually Chelios by the number.

Nonetheless, there have been some incredibly special moments for Patrick Kane on that ice, usually for the Blackhawks franchise, and for him, in that return, on the day that he gets that incredible ovation during the TV time out… I mean look, it felt like it was 6 minutes of pure standing ovation to the point where he had to take three different laps around the ice to salute the fans. For him to be the guy with the puck on his stick after that desperation heave by the defenseman, just shoveling it out of the zone and onto Kane’s stick for the breakaway, as soon as that happened you knew that there was zero doubt that Kane would be scoring.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah, Petr Mrazek was largely irrelevant there. You could have had prime Dominik Hasek between the pipes and Kane would have found a way to finish that one off.

So, a great night in Chicago and for Kane, we don’t even need to get into it too much because this is the same conversation we had at the end of last week when Kane scored an OT winner, kept his point streak alive, and at that point we sat here and went “woah, he’s up to a point per game now”. Now he’s above a point-per-game. This is vintage Patrick Kane and I don’t think he’s going to slow down anytime soon. This isn’t a heater, this is who he really is.

Frank Seravalli: 28 points in 27 games and it looks like he’s getting stronger. That’s an 85-point pace over a full season. We talked about this today on the DFO Rundown with Jason Gregor: of all the players who could have the puck on their stick in a clutch overtime situation like that late in a Stanley Cup playoff game, how many guys do you feel more confident that they’re going to find a way to score than Kane?

I’d suggest that you could count on one hand, but even then I’m not sure that I’d pick anyone else ahead of Kane. And that’s right now, that’s not history, that’s not vintage, that’s Kane in the here and now. That’d be one guy I’d have on my team, and there’s a big reason why the Detroit Red Wings are a playoff team.

You can watch the full episode here…