Hawks win despite Kane’s head-scratching goal
Marian Hossa had never seen anything like it.
Duncan Keith called it “kind of funny ... what can you do about it?.”
Andrew Shaw said it’s something you “see maybe once every five years.”
Meanwhile, Patrick Kane could only stand at his locker and shake his head.
Not only about the weirdest play of the night during the Blackhawks’ 5-3 win over the Oilers on Sunday, but the fact that it capped back-to-back nights of wackiness with Kane center stage.
It started Saturday in Montreal when he circled back into his own zone with the puck only to eventually turn it over, leading to a Canadiens goal and an overtime loss.
Kane followed that up Sunday by scoring an empty netter from about 200 feet away ... for the Oilers.
“The last couple of nights, last couple of plays,” Kane said with a sigh. “You don’t really expect that to happen. Whether it’s turning it back in overtime or shooting it back tonight.”
With the Hawks already on the man advantage and a delayed penalty called, goalie Antti Raanta skated to the bench for an extra attacker.
That’s when Kane, with the puck below the Edmonton goal line, banked a pass out to the point to a player who wasn’t there, and watched in agony as the puck glided all the way down ice and into the Hawks’ net to tie the game at 2-2.
“It seemed to just catch speed and went in the net,” said Kane, who added his teammates were jokingly crediting him with a goal and 2 assists. “You’re trying to score for your team and you end up scoring for the other guys. It’s pretty crazy how that happens.”
But unlike the past few games when the Hawks have struggled to score more than 2 goals a game, they answered with their third of the evening 30 seconds later when the birthday boy, Hossa, scored on a one-timer from the top of the circle to give the Hawks a little breathing room.
“We answered the bell right away; Hoss goes out and puts one in,” said Shaw, who centered for Kane and Brandon Saad on Sunday.
Shaw also scored his first goal in a long, long time.
“I needed that big time,” he admitted. “I was down on myself and my confidence wasn’t high. But I got one and got that monkey off my back.”
Just like the team as a whole, which has battled the doldrums lately and struggled with starts in their last handful of games.
Not the case Sunday.
“We’ve kind of been a little inconsistent throughout games in the last little while,” Keith said. “I thought we did a good job having a better start tonight.
“I know they got the first goal but we still came out with a better effort than we had in previous games and, as the game wore on, I thought we played more the way we wanted to.”