Kane quiets jeers with winner
NEW YORK — Morning skates are pretty much rote for NHL players — loosen up with a few laps, run a few drills, skate a few line rushes, fire a few shots, then head back in. But Friday morning at Barclays Center, Patrick Kane whacked the puck around a few extra times to get a feel for the rink, which was hosting its first regularseason NHL game later in the evening.
“You try to feel out certain things, like how bouncy the boards are, what the atmosphere is like, how the ice is,” said Kane, who equated the quirky arena— a basketball only joint with an ice rink shoe- horned in — to European buildings in which the crowd is right on top of the action. “You try to feel everything out. It’s still hockey, you’re still on the same sized ice sheet. It’s just kind of a different atmosphere.”
Well, the atmosphere wasn’t very welcoming for Kane, but the rink suited him just fine. Kane scored twice, including the game- winner off a fortuitous bounce in overtime, to lead the Hawks to a 3- 2 victory over the New York Islanders.
It was Kane’s first road game since becoming the target of a police investigation into a sexual- assault allegation in Western New York in early August. And while the New York press didn’t mention the investigation once in a seven- minute scrum after the morning skate, a smattering of Islanders fans chanted “No means no” nearly every time Kane had the puck. More fans joined in after the goal, and Kane was booed lustily when the goal was announced.
Kane said he didn’t hear any of the chants and called it a “good crowd” that was amped up for the Islanders’ Brooklyn debut. But he was braced for them, anyway, and expects it to be something he hears all season.
“I’m sure it is,” he said. “Nothing I’m too worried about. You don’t expect them to be super nice when you’re going into a road building and expect cheers. Nothing I’m worried about.”
As for the game, the Hawks sleepwalked through much of it, and Joel Quenneville tried just about every line combination he could think of to smack them out of it. Artem Anisimov’s shorthanded goal gave them a 1- 0 lead, but John Tavares tied it early in the second. The Hawks seemed to have momentum after Kane’s goal — the product of Quenneville’s line blender and some hard battling behind the net by Jonathan Toews — but the Islanders took it right back with Marek Zidlicky’s goal 78 seconds into the third.
Both teams had chances to win in regulation. Teuvo Teravainen hit both posts with a shot late in the third, but Bryan Bickell whiffed on the rebound. And in the final minute, an Andrew Shaw turnover led to a great chance for Tavares, but his shot deflected wide.
In the three- on- three overtime, former Hawks defenseman Nick Leddy took a hooking penalty on a Marian Hossa breakaway, and Kane’s pass intended for Toews ricocheted past Thomas Greiss for the winner.
“We definitely had some good, we had some ugly,” Quenneville said. “We’ve got them again [ Saturday] night, so we’ll have to be better.”