What to write? What to write?
That question repeated itself in my head many times over the last few days. As this season wears on, I’m sure Mark Lazerus and I will be searching harder and harder for story ideas. The games already feel meaningless, and we can only write so much about the trade deadline and Connor Bedard. (Wow, he’s good, though, huh?) If you have anything you’d like us to write, please feel free to let us know. We’re always open to ideas.
Luckily, I have been sitting on leftovers from The Athletic’s Patrick Kane’s NHL99 story, so I’ll finally get to those today. But before that, I do have a few prospect notes to share.
1. The extent of Colton Dach’s shoulder injury at the World Junior Championship is still unknown. The Blackhawks hope to have more information about his timetable soon.
Dach has had a rough year. He suffered a concussion while with the Blackhawks in the fall, had another one while with his junior team and now this.
2. I would expect the Blackhawks to start giving more players, especially forwards, from the Rockford IceHogs looks in the NHL in the near future. Aside from Lukas Reichel, no others IceHogs’ forward has been recalled.
Cole Guttman is the obvious one who has earned a few NHL games, but it sounds like Blackhawks management would also like to reward some of the veterans who are playing well with the IceHogs. Brett Seney is second in the AHL with 38 points.
3. The IceHogs announced Saturday that goalie Arvid Söderblom is expected to miss 2-3 weeks with a groin injury. He suffered the injury during the first period in a game on Dec. 28.
Söderblom was in the midst of a rough stretch prior to the injury. He allowed seven goals on 26 shots in his last game with the Blackhawks on Dec. 18. He returned to the IceHogs, gave up five goals on 12 shots and was pulled in the second period on Dec. 20. In his next game on Dec. 23, he allowed three goals on 20 shots. He then suffered the injury in the next game.
4. Forward prospect Gavin Hayes, a 2022 third-round pick, had himself a December to remember. He had two hat tricks and scored 11 goals in eight games. He has 20 goals and 15 assists in 33 games this season.
5. Forward prospect Jalen Luypen recently returned to game action from his rotator cuff injury. He had been out since last season. In his five games back for the Tri-City Americans, Luypen has two goals and two assists. He is already signed with the Blackhawks.
6. And now, let’s get to the meat of this story. When I sat down with Kane for the NHL99 story, we watched a lot of clips from throughout his career. Not all of them made the original story, but I hoped to include the others somewhere at some point. So, here they are.
7. The first clip is a full shift by Kane during the Artemi Panarin years. I just thought it’d be interesting to get Kane’s thoughts on an entire shift.
Kane: “A lot of the things we do is we would try to come back with speed together. I think even there, we dump it in, but find a way to get it back. Obviously, Panarin’s one of the best at making plays in the world, but I think it was fun when each other had the puck because you could read off that player. But you had a lot of confidence that he was going to make the right play and be able to find you if you got open, so it was almost like more of an incentive to get open.
“And this stuff was always fun, the crossover stuff really developed together with using the whole rink and being able to make those cross-ice passes, especially out of our end to get us going. And then with (Alex) DeBrincat as well, it became a thing where we weren’t really slashing across, but we were just trying to find the wide side of the ice, relieve pressure over there and then maybe the late guy’s coming from the first pass in the defensive zone. So if I gave a cross-ice to Panarin and or to DeBrincat, I could come in late and maybe be the second layer for those guys to make a play.
“You have to be aware of who you’re out there with (when you’re looking to blow the zone). Obviously Panarin’s right-handed, so it’s easier for him to make that play cross-ice with the amount of skill and how good of a player he is. He’s going to make that play more often than not. So when he has the puck, you’re just pretty much taking off. You know he’s gonna hit you. But yeah, it’s about reading, reading the other team, too. You see that D-man pinch down and then there’s more of an opportunity, even if another player gets up in the play. I think one of my goals, I think it was against Nashville last year, DeBrincat sent it wide to Stromer (Dylan Strome) and I, and their defenseman pinched, so it was like we have a two-on-one and you can create. off that.”
8. The next clip was one of Kane’s highlight backhanded goals.
Kane: “This one’s on Stilly (Riley Stillman). I think you get to points of the game where maybe things aren’t going your way, you get maybe a little frustrated, you start trying to do some things yourself. But sometimes, it works out. Sometimes, it doesn’t. This one when I pulled it through, it was almost perfect the way my body was in position to the way he was defending it. He was almost like holding me up and I could brace on the right leg there. And the puck is just like in a perfect position where all I gotta do is just have it out in front of me and like almost follow through with the puck. I think with my stick and my curve, it’s a good chance to get it up in the top shelf there. … Oh, yeah, (Stillman and I) talked about that.”
9. This was an older highlight goal.
Kane: “You see guys, like (Henrik) Zetterberg would do stuff like this, and we would practice stuff like this all the time. With the assistant coaches when we were younger, we’d go on the ice a little bit early and practice shots like this or even on the other side.
“I remember I was kind of complaining about my sticks a little bit with Bauer and the Bauer guy was at the game tonight. I guess he started smacking my dad on the back saying, ‘The sticks look pretty good.'”
10. I picked this one because I thought he might have some interesting things to say about it.
Kane: “This one they had me on the left side on the PP. I don’t mind playing over here, actually. I feel like I just scored some goals from shooting it over there.
“You get a little more motion (when starting with the puck at the top). The puck on the outside, so it’s harder for defenders to knock it away. And like here, I’m shielding the puck with my body, so I can shoot, I can pass it back again. There’s different options out there, so I don’t mind being over there.”
11. Finally, I showed him five shootout attempts from throughout his career.
Kane: “This one was good because the crowd was into it. I think we’re going on that (points) streak. We’re down off and I scored late in the game.”
Kane: “This one I think is maybe the last game of the season, so it didn’t matter. So I was like, I’m gonna go try something here and luckily enough it worked out.”
Kane: “This one here, I told the boys on the bench before, I was like, here, I got something for you guys. That’s when the slowdown came.”
Kane: “This one I kind of copied off Sam Gagner. He would do that move all the time in junior and score.”
Kane: “This is the one that probably sticks out the most. You know I was practicing this a lot during practice and kind of scared to use it in a game. And I remember talking to Jamal Mayers on the bench, and he’s like, yeah, just go do it, go try it. I was having success with it and goalies didn’t know how to read it. So here, you’re just kind of slowing down, you’re just stick-handling, stick-handling until a goalie makes a move.”
(Photo: Daniel Bartel / USA Today)
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