Detroit Red Wings
Kane Scores OT Winner to Propel Red Wings to Victory in His Chicago Return
Playing his first game with the visiting team in Chicago's United Center, Patrick Kane plays the hero once again to earn Detroit a 3-2 come-from-behind victory.
Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports - Kane Scores OT Winner to Propel Red Wings to Victory in His Chicago ReturnSunday evening was bound to be emotional one at the United Center in Chicago; that much was clear before the day even began.
First, in a pre-game ceremony, Chris Chelios—the longtime Blackhawk then Red Wing defenseman—would have his number seven jersey retired. Then, in the main event, Patrick Kane would play his first game in the building as a member of the visiting team with a third Blackhawk-turned-Red Wing on his opposite wing in Alex DeBrincat.
The Chelios ceremony had to be special, prepared as it was to be a moment for both fan bases to savor. Chelios added a distinctive spin on a familiar sort of celebration when he saluted Kane, while joking about his Chicago-to-Detroit heel turn, in his remarks.
Though the pre-game festivities were scripted, the game itself somehow played out with an even greater sense of inevitability, ending the only way it possibly could with Kane—whose made a career of taking center stage at the decisive moments of the season's most important games—scoring a breakaway goal in overtime, set up by a pass from DeBrincat. The perfect ending to a unique emotional iteration of an Original Six rivalry.
In the first period, Detroit looked like a team succumbing to an obvious let-down spot—fighting for the playoffs and riding a four-game win streak while traveling with its back-up in net on the second night of a back-to-back to the arena of a rebuilding cellar-dweller for whom there were no playoff aspirations beyond preseason lip service, with the added distraction of Kane's return and the pre-game ceremony.
Chicago applied early pressure and induced a pair of chaotic scrambles at James Reimer's crease that each could have resulted in a goal. The first came a bit more than five minutes into the game on a premium chance for Philipp Kurashev with Anthony Beauvillier and rookie standout Connor Bedard lurking for the rebound. Somehow, a combination of Andrew Copp, Mortiz Seider, and Reimer managed to keep the puck out. A second such scramble came no more than two minutes later, but once again, Reimer kept the puck out.
In between, at the game's first commercial break, the United Center Jumbotron showed a tribute video to Kane, with both benches offering stick taps of solidarity and Kane himself taking three laps around the ice to receive the applause from a crowd no less adoring for his change in uniform.
Not long after the clock ticked under nine minutes to play in the first, Nick Foligno had a glorious chance off a failed Red Wing breakout attempt, but his backhand shot sailed high and wide. Then, with under a minute remaining in the period, against the run of play, Daniel Sprong scored the game's opening goal. It came on a give-and-go with Christian Fischer, with Sprong finishing the play with remarkable power despite falling forward as he shot. As goal horn rang out, Sprong lay on his belly wearing a sheepish grin, at once admiring and smirking at his handiwork.
The lead Sprong provided Detroit didn't survive much longer than the first intermission, however, with MacKenzie Entwistle scoring three minutes and 29 seconds into the second period to tie the game at one. As the period continued, the Blackhawks—as if invigorated by Chelios' pre-game honors and Kane's return—played an aggressive forechecking game with an intensity and efficacy that did not seem to compute with the 15-39-4 they brought into the game.
Those efforts resulted in the game's first power play with three minutes remaining in the period. 52 seconds into that advantage, Bedard propelled Chicago into their first lead of the evening when he fired a shot from the point through heavy traffic that Foligno deflected past Reimer. That 2-1 margin remained in place through the end of the second, with the Blackhawks having outshot their guests 12-7 in the period and 24-19 for the game.
Heading into the late stages of the third, Kane's return was at serious risk of being an unsuccessful one, at least one the ice. The winger hadn't had any especially dangerous looks at the net, and Detroit trailed the lowly Blackhawks with under five minutes to play.
Then, Kane danced into the offensive zone before dishing the puck to Alex DeBrincat, yet another former Blackhawk. DeBrincat fired a bad angle shot that was deadened on the way to the net, but DeBrincat found the rebound and banked it from an even worse angle off Petr Mrazek and in to tie the game, with the clock showing 4:16 to play. The goal brought forth an unlikely octopus from the United Center crowd.
The goal inspired Detroit's most intensive offensive push of the evening, with the Red Wings threatening to ad a go-ahead goal in the final minutes of regulation. Instead, the third ended level at two, and the game proceeded to overtime.
After a flurry of chances in both directions came the only appropriate conclusion to the evening: Patrick Kane scoring an overtime winner, sprung for a breakaway by DeBrincat, then flashing the dexterity of his hands before whipping a perfectly placed shot into the top corner of the net, with Mrazek unable even to react, much less stop the shot. And, in keeping with the evening's theme of inevitability, it could only be DeBrincat who was the first player to greet Kane with a hug in the ensuing celebration, before he took one last solo lap around the ice to raucous applause from Red Wing and Blackhawk fans alike.
"Didn't play our greatest tonight," Kane told Trevor Thompson of Bally Sports Detroit. "There was a lot going on, a lot of emotion. Sometimes it's tough to focus on those games, but found a way, man. It's just something about this group. We just find a way."