AVS, ALTITUDE CAN’T SLOW KANE
Tallies goal and 2 assists while playing extra for injured Hossa
DENVER — With Marian Hossa knocked out of the game by new Blackhawks nemesis Ryan O’Byrne, Joel Quenneville turned time and time again to Patrick Kane on Monday night. And time and time again, Kane happily hopped over the boards.
Kane never turns down ice time. Not even at 5,280 feet.
“A couple times, he even laughed at me for asking the question,” Quenneville said.
Kane double-shifted his way to a goal and two assists — his third three-point game in the last four outings — as the Hawks knocked off the Colorado Avalanche 5-2 for their third straight win.
Kane played 22 minutes, 30 seconds, more than any forward or defenseman on either team — including nearly 17 minutes in the final two periods after Hossa suffered an apparent arm injury on a hit along the boards.
Brandon Saad joked about Kane’s “iron lung.” Jonathan Toews (who also had a goal and two assists in nearly 5:30 less ice time) wondered if Kane had been “training up in the mountains all summer or something.” As for Kane? Well, he just likes to play.
“It was a little bit tiring,” he admitted. “But, I don’t know, you can’t really turn down much ice, especially when they keep telling you to go out there. I was happy with it. I think at the end of the game I was a little worn out, but I’ll take the ice time if they keep calling my name.”
The win was a nice bit of revenge for the Hawks, whose record 24-game point streak ended at the Pepsi Center 10 days earlier. But they might eventually want to exact some revenge on O’Byrne, who injured Patrick Sharp two weeks ago with a similar hit to the one that knocked out Hossa on Mon- day. Quenneville said Hossa was “not bad,” and that he was “day-to-day.” His status for Wednesday’s showdown at Anaheim is up in the air.
O’Byrne later delivered a cross-check right to the face of Saad on a scoring chance from the slot.
“I didn’t know it was the same guy,” Kane said. “When you’re up in a game like that 4-2 or 5-2, I don’t think it’s really right to try and go retaliate at that time. It’s unfortunate, I guess, but hopefully whatever happens comes his way.”
Even with the Hossa injury, Toews called the game a “very, very complete 60 minutes for us as a team.”
Jimmy Hayes and Andrew Shaw scored 57 seconds apart early in the first period. And after Gabriel Landeskog beat Ray Emery (17 saves) on a shorthanded breakaway in the final minute of the first period to cut the lead to 2-1, the Hawks answered right back. Kane roofed a loose puck from a near-impossible angle along the goal line to make it 3-1 early in the second, and then Brent Seabrook — benched for the first 12:37 of the second period after being burned on the Landeskog goal — scored on his second shift back, onetiming a Kane pass.
Quenneville declined to say why Seabrook was benched.
“We made a move there,” he said. “He got back in there, scored a nice goal on a nice pass by Kaner, and set up a nice play in the third.”
After Milan Hejduk made it 4-2 late in the second, the Hawks defense clamped down on the Avalanche, holding them without a shot for nearly 15 minutes in the third period. Meanwhile, Toews got his fifth goal in the last six games to seal the win.
“It was a good game all around by the team,” said Kane, still breathing a little heavily. “Especially after the last game, them ending our streak, we wanted to get a little bit of redemption. The two previous games they probably outplayed us. It was a good game for us, a great effort all around. Nice to beat them like that.”