Full disclosure: this article was started three days ago with the original headline being “The please don’t sign Kane article” that was typed as space-filler and for identification purposes. We can skip those discussions now, which would amount to crying over spilled milk.
Instead, let’s explore this thought: what version of Kane did the Blackhawks sign on Thursday morning?
No one visiting this site needs a summary of what Kane did during his first Chicago stint. But with his 38th birthday arriving in November, Kane’s not the player he was during those prime seasons he enjoyed with Chicago. Still, he did have 57 points (16 G, 41 A) in 67 games last season with Detroit, which is about a 71-point pace over a full 84-game season (that’s right: we’re up to 84 games now). He also had 47 points (20 G, 27 A) in 50 games during the 2023-24 season and 59 (21 G, 38 A) in 72 games during the 2024-25 season. Optimists will point to the collective 0.86 point-per-game pace over the last three seasons, a rate only Connor Bedard has surpassed in Chicago during the last three Blackhawks seasons. Pessimists will note the games missed to injuries over the last few seasons.
Those injuries have been largely different from the hip injuries that affected Kane towards the end of his Chicago tenure, and he underwent hip resurfacing surgery in June 2023, an operation that’s typically meant the end of a hockey career. But, this March 2025 article from the NHL website includes a quote from Kane regarding his progress in the years since, suggesting he’s knows the extra care required of those hips to keep him on the ice:
“It’s less treatment, more stuff in the gym, more working on being more fluid and explosive,” Kane said. “I’ve still got to take care of it and do what you need to do, but it’s just like anyone else with their body, right? It definitely feels like my own now, and it feels like it’s part of me.”
And Kane did appear to get better as his time in Detroit continued. The three player cards below are from Corey Sznajder’s All Three Zones project, presented in chronological order, starting in 2023-24. Watch the blue lines really take hold in the offense-related sections at the top of the cards by the 2025-26 season.
One particular concern from this corner of the internet has been that Kane’s production was becoming over-reliant on power-play time to keep his numbers at a worthwhile level. However, that may be a touch overstated. The percentage of Kane’s points coming on the power play has steadily increased over the last decade, as indicated by the data below, split into three season chunks of his time in Detroit, his last three seasons in Chicago (ignoring that weird NY stint) and the three seasons before that:
Season
G
A
P
PPG
PPA
PPP
PPG% of Total
PPA% of Total
PPP% of Total
17-18 til 19-20
104
166
270
22
53
75
21.2%
31.9%
27.8%
Last 3 in CHI
57
146
203
14
57
71
24.6%
39.0%
35.0%
With Detroit
57
106
163
16
47
63
28.1%
44.3%
38.7%
But that increased percentage from the power play could just be the result of Kane seeing less ice time at 5-on-5, as his overall average ice time in Detroit was just 17:59, when he was at 19:57 during the 2022-23 season with Chicago and over 21 minutes in the four seasons before that. When you focus on the ratesof production for Kane at 5-on-5, there’s an almost shocking lack of decline from Kane.
Below is the Natural Stat Trick data from Kane’s last nine seasons:
Season
Team
ATOI
G/60
A/60
A1/60
A2/60
P/60
SOG/60
ixG/60
2017-18
CHI
15:35
0.80
1.36
0.94
0.42
2.16
9.39
0.73
2018-19
CHI
17:28
1.10
1.7
1.06
0.64
2.8
9.16
0.71
2019-20
CHI
16:17
1.00
1.63
1.1
0.53
2.63
9.57
0.75
2020-21
CHI
16:53
0.71
1.55
0.97
0.58
2.26
7.88
0.55
2021-22
CHI
16:38
0.69
1.57
1.06
0.51
2.27
7.9
0.55
2022-23
CHI
15:20
0.94
0.87
0.58
0.29
1.81
8.4
0.66
2022-23
NYR
14:10
0.67
1.11
0.45
0.67
1.78
7.13
0.58
2023-24
DET
14:13
1.18
1.1
0.59
0.51
2.28
7.68
0.64
2024-25
DET
14:02
0.47
1.07
0.53
0.53
1.54
6.77
0.59
2025-26
DET
13:39
0.79
1.25
0.79
0.46
2.03
7.8
0.76
Natural Stat Trick isn’t the only place suggesting Kane’s game hasn’t slipped as much as one might expect in the years since he left town and had more time to recover from that significant 2023 operation:
Patrick Kane (2x8m deal with Chicago) has (mostly) bounced back from the injury issues that had him seemingly knocked out of relevance; is extremely good at passing the puck to someone who will score. Weak defensively, a good finisher, doesn't create offence anymore.
One fair question to ask, though, is whether or not Kane can continue to produce at a similar rate on a team that’s been downright dreadful at possessing the puck over the last few seasons. Kane’s never been the greatest driver of possession in his career, but his skills have typically over-performed those deficiencies because he doesn’t need a ton of possession to make things happen — especially off the rush. Detroit wasn’t a great possession team last season, either, finishing 21st in quantity (48.81 percent shot attempt share) and 21st in quality (49.19 percent expected goal share). But the Hawks were much worse at 30th (45.60) and 32nd (42.25), respectively, in those categories last season. Kane looks like he can still do a lot of things with the puck but is that going to matter if he never gets the puck at the end of the ice where he can do them? Guess that’ll be something we learn in a few months.
On the ice, this seems to make more and more sense for the Hawks. Although the story with Kane was never solely about the on-ice matters, was it? For some, this means nothing — and good for them. But there are others who viewed the departures of Toews and Kane three years ago as the closing of one extremely difficult chapter and Bedard’s arrival that summer as the start of a new one, free from the burdens associated with this team’s recent past — a portion of that being Kane’s own doing and another portion of it that was not. And now we’re staring back at that part of the book all over again, wondering how to reconcile that with our fandom yet again. That, too, is going to be an ongoing process.
The $8 million AAV is of no concern because the Hawks are still lightyears away any sort of realistic salary cap concerns. A two-year deal is probably not going to be a problem in any way, either, even if Father Time decides next week that he’d like to remind Kane of his existence. The Blackhawks are still going to need more answers for the questions about their team’s forward depth in the future, but they may have found a stopgap measure for the short term with this (re?) acquisition.
