Dec. 10--As a hockey player, Patrick Kane continues to defy belief, deserve our respect and demand a city's undivided attention.
Looking so effortless on the ice, Kane makes us stop what we're doing, stare at his stickhandling with awe and shake our heads in amazement. You don't want to miss a shift, let alone a period. You watch Kane make fools out of goalies and stars out of teammates. You wonder how a guy skating with such an obvious edge still can make hockey look so elegant.
It's as impossible to look away as it is to comprehend. Kane followed up the worst summer of his life with the best start of his career, making history after making headlines no player wants.
Inevitably, Kane lost some fans along the way. But did he gain a purpose that sharpened his focus? Is his start to the season the ultimate answer to all those uncomfortable questions surrounding Kane during preseason? Perhaps playing hockey became Kane's escape, as he has suggested, and scoring points his outlet. He tuned out the noise and turned up his game, finding a level that has made the most visible Blackhawk the NHL's most valuable player so far, an early favorite for the Hart Trophy.
Chicago has seen Kane display his special talent so often before, but usually in the playoffs when "Showtime" typically includes several encores. Never has Kane been this dominant for this long during the regular season.
Consider the last time Kane played a game in which he didn't register a goal or an assist was Oct. 15 and the Cubs had just finished off the Cardinals in their National League Division Series. That was almost two months and 23 Hawks games ago. That's the equivalent of scoring every game in the postseason.
Kane has 14 goals and 23 assists during the streak, the longest for an American-born player, and the 37 points in that span are more than any NHL player has recorded all season. Tuesday's goal against the Predators kept Kane atop the NHL scoring leaders with 43 points and marked his 600th career point in 604 career games. Kane's next target: Sidney Crosby's 25-game streak for the Penguins in 2010 that is within reach.
Wayne Gretzky's NHL record of 51 straight games with a point during the 1983-84 season probably isn't, though it's still a worthy comparison because of the difference in eras. Goals simply are harder to score now than they were in the Gretzky era. As NHL.com pointed out, teams averaged 3.97 goals per game during Gretzky's streak compared to 2.65 during Kane's, and Gretzky accounted for 51.2 percent of his team's points while Kane has factored into 56.2 percent.
Nobody who ever played the game surpasses Gretzky as an offensive player, but Hawks fans indeed find themselves in the midst of sporting greatness, a rare and unprecedented run for Kane, an extended period of excellence on par in the city with the modern-day feats of Michael Jordan, Sammy Sosa and more recently Jake Arrieta.
Now, if Kane dared to compare his ability to come through in the clutch to Jordan, nobody in town would bristle. Now, opposing goaltenders and coaches aren't the only ones who walk away from Hawks games in a state of disbelief. Watching Kane and the Hawks this year includes a familiar refrain every game that has nothing to do with "Chelsea Dagger": Did you see that? Can you believe that? How did he do that?
If Stephen Curry of the Warriors is the most entertaining athlete to watch in all of sports, Kane rates a close second. A better debate might be which smiling superstar looks like he is having more fun doing what they do, Curry or Kane?
Enjoy it, hockey fans. Appreciate it. Instagram it.
Understand it.
As a hockey player, Kane makes the Hawks still dangerous, always feared, ever relevant in the Western Conference. As long as Kane stays hot, coach Joel Quenneville can keep holding auditions for third- and fourth-liners whose names and numbers nobody recognizes without worrying about scoring goals. Kane has thrived playing alongside new Russian teammates, center Artem Anisimov and Artemi Panarin, forming one of the league's most lethal lines and making Brandon Saad's absence easier to take.
A cursory glance at the standings shows the Hawks visit the Predators on Thursday night with 34 points and in the middle of a crowded, competitive bunch of teams with legitimate playoff aspirations. Nobody seems worried and nobody should be. Kane, Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith and Corey Crawford seem to take turns being the most indispensable Hawks player. This is Kane's turn. This is his time.
This is what a superstar looks like in his prime.
dhaugh@tribpub.com
