Patrick Kane Finally Scores In Blackhawks Win Over Panthers

Published: 21^st Jan 12 12:50 am

Randy Holt
NHL Network Manager

RANT It!

Tommy Giglio-US PRESSWIRE

Much has been made of the recent offensive slump of Patrick Kane of late, even with the Blackhawks grabbing enough points to get back to the top of the NHL.

Obviously it’d be a bigger deal if the Blackhawks were struggling to find some offense and Patrick Kane was contributing absolutely nothing to the lineup, which isn’t the case.

The Hawks have been getting contributions from up and down the lineup, from Jonathan Toews to youngster Andrew Shaw, meaning that Kane hasn’t had to tickle the twine on a nightly basis.

Even so, it was still great to see him notch a couple of points in the Hawks’ 3-1 win over the Florida Panthers on Friday night. One of his two came on his first goal in eight games.

Before scoring his goal to make it 3-0 in the second, Kane set up Toews for his goal in the first period on a beauty of a feed that made it 1-0 Hawks. Then Kane finally found the back of the net in the second period, with his 11th goal in the season and took home First Star honors for the night.

Kane’s strong performance gives him 41 points on the season, including 11 goals and 30 assists. Sure, he hasn’t been able to score as much as he’d like this season, but he’s still putting apples into the box score regularly.

In fact, along with Toews and Viktor Stalberg, the Hawks’ top line of the three is playing as well as we have seen any play this season. They’re a threat to score on every shift and the speed of the line makes them a nightmare for opposing teams.

You could see the relief on Kane’s face right as he scored and on the bench afterwards. Hopefully that means that some of that confidence is back and we’ll see Kane start hitting the twine with some regularity.

Which would also means we’d hear less from Mike Milbury about how depressed Kane is. He’ll be killing two birds with one stone.