What will Hawks’ Kane think of next?
With a player as creative and skilled as Patrick Kane, you never know what you’ll see next.
Just when you think you’ve seen it all from Kane, the Blackhawks’ star pulls something else out of his bag of tricks such as the shootout goal he scored in Wednesday’s win at Minnesota.
The goal was so special it occupied the No. 1 spot on ESPN SportsCenter’s top plays of the day.
“Especially on SportsCenter, you don’t see any hockey plays on SportsCenter,” Kane said when asked Thursday if he was surprised at how much attention the move was getting.
In case you missed it, Kane skated down on Wild goalie Niklas Backstrom, slowed to a crawl, stick-handled the puck back and forth more than a dozen times and fired the puck into an empty net after Backstrom bit on the last fake.
There were so many moves involved you lost count.
“Did anybody count them?” Hawks coach Joel Quenneville asked reporters on Thursday.
Said Kane: “I don’t know how many it was.”
It was a move we’ve never seen before in a shootout from Kane, who normally either takes a wrist shot or goes with a backhand in tight.
Kane knew he wanted to try something different and felt it was a good spot, what with the Hawks already ahead 1-0 in the shootout on Jonathan Toews’ leadoff goal.
“I knew I was going to kind of stop up and see if the goalie was going to stay back in his net,” Kane said. “I was probably was going to fire it quick and if not, just stick-handle and kind of get him to break either way. I guess it turned out.
“I’ve tried it a few times in practice and had some good success at it. We were in a good position to win and I thought I’d try something different. You’ve seen guys go real slow before, but I kind of probably took it to another level there going slow.”
Quenneville had no idea what Kane was going to try.
“I don’t foresee what’s going to be the move when guys are going down,” Quenneville said. “We talk about going with speed and making a move. He did just the opposite. That added patience that he showed was pretty remarkable. That was an amazing play.
“With goal scorers, it’s all timing and all feel. I don’t know how premeditated something like that is. The whole shootout thing, it’s a different kind of thought process and mentality.”
In shootouts, all that needs to keep moving forward is the puck. Kane certainly pushed the envelope there.
“I’ve seen guys almost skate backwards and pull it back,” Kane said. “I think Marty St. Louis last year faked a spin-o-rama and pulled it back, but his feet were still moving forward. In my case, I was still moving forward the whole time. I was going slow, but I was still moving.
“I think it’s almost easier and a good move to try because you have so much time to really pick and choose what you want. It’s all about reading the goaltender. If you have confidence in your hands and stick-handling, I guess you can do it in any situation.”