Yahoo Sports Overtime Still Showtime as Kane Lifts Red Wings over Ottawa
DETROIT —Patrick Kane, whose crunch time heroics have earned him the nickname 'Showtime,' is accustomed to playing the hero, but after scoring the overtime winner in Tuesday night's 3–2 victory over the Ottawa Senators, he deferred to the evening's breakout stars.
Anton Forsberg had been excellent in the Senator crease, and the Red Wings hadn't shown the best of their game for most of the night, but when Jake Sanderson went to the box for hooking two minutes and 10 seconds into the extra session, Detroit's path to victory was clear, and Kane swaggered down it as only he can.
Dylan Larkin won the draw back. Kane paused for a moment, dusted the puck off, then wired the puck past Forsberg's blocker. In celebration, he dropped to a knee in celebration for a windmilling fist pump, before crossing himself and pointing skyward. It was not a sudden profession of devotion but rather an homage to a coterie of nuns who'd earned Jumbotron celebrity over the course of the evening.
"I mean, it's always fun to play in overtime, right?" Kane said, grinning, some 20 minutes after his winning goal, and it's not hard to see how he arrived at that perspective. Kane hardly needed the sign of the cross to mark himself as blessed: The shot, the hands, the composure, and the embrace of the game's biggest moments already made that clear.
Rick Osentoski, Imagn Images
"It's hard to score in this league," said forward Joe Veleno when asked about his own exuberant celebration after netting a third-period equalizer (one Kane described as the evening's second best, presumably trailing only his own), before nodding over to Kane, seated beside him at the podium. "Maybe not for him."
"I'm honored to be his coach to tell you the truth," added Todd McLellan of Kane. "You watch him all those years and try to solve him all those years. I'm glad I don't have to do that. His poise with the puck is uncanny—how he can slow things down, speed it up. Probably an underrated shot. I never gave him enough credit for a shot like that that he scored. Quietly leads, goes about his business, and everybody kinda follows, so yeah, it's nice having him around for sure."
Of course overtime is fun for the blessed Kane, for whom three-on-three is little more than a playground and a four-on-three power play almost unfair. "No matter what happens out there, you have the chance to get the puck and create with that much ice," he said. "And then when it goes four-on-three, especially in that situation where we win a face-off, you're looking to create right off the draw...Nice to see it go in."
As a collective, Detroit wanted for verve for most of the evening, and the team's penalty kill struggles—trending in the right direction under McLellan's leadership—reared up, with Ottawa scoring on one of its two power plays and moments after the other expired to build a 2–1 lead through two periods. The Red Wings also had to deal with the loss of starting goaltender Alex Lyon to injury after the first period. In the end, though, none of it proved enough to dim Showtime's light.
"I didn't think we skated quite as well tonight as we have in some of the other games, and that's gonna happen here," McLellan assessed. "Maybe you don't have your legs. Maybe the team is hooking, holding—your opponent is hooking, holding a little bit more, there's more to fight through. I didn't think we got up the ice in units of five, but we still found a way to win a game when we were down one heading into the third."
With the win, Detroit improved to 18–18–4 for the season, a measure of mediocrity that is in fact invigorating for a group that's spent its season below even that modest bar.
"I think that's a really good thing, but .500 is just .500, that gets you nothing really in the league," McLellan said of his team's record. "But to crawl back the way we have is important. I did tell the players, 'Quit worrying about wins and losses and streaks and playoffs and just play the game. Make mistakes. Play well. We'll fix it the next day. And later on we'll look at the standings.' So I'm aware we're at .500, but I'm not overly concerned or too excited about it."
Kane, meanwhile, expressed pride in the Red Wings' rapid ascendance and optimism about what is to follow, saying "It's great how we've kind of worked ourselves back to this position...I think a month ago, if you would've told us we'd be in this position, everyone on the team would've taken it and...[we] have half a season to keep it going."
If McLellan is to be believed, Detroit will keep following Kane to more Showtime in the 42 games still to come.
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