After a bad start last season, he was not on the U.S. roster for the 4 Nations Face-Off when it was announced Dec. 4. U.S. general manager Bill Guerin flew to Detroit to tell him in person. But Kane thrived after the Red Wings replaced coach Derek Lalonde with Todd McLellan on Dec. 26, producing 45 points (16 goals, 29 assists) in his final 42 games.<\/p>\n
He got off to a good start this season before sustaining his injury in a 2-1 overtime win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Oct. 17.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s brutal,\u201d Kane said.<\/p>\n
He needs six goals for 500 in his NHL career and 27 points for 1,375, which would pass Mike Modano for first in NHL history among players born in the United States.<\/p>\n
The Red Wings hoped Kane would join them sometime during a five-game road trip that stretched from Oct. 28 through Tuesday. But he had to stay behind, skating and working out in the gym. He said it was like summer training, and his conditioning shouldn\u2019t be too far behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you need some time,\u201d Kane said. \u201cMaybe originally, especially right after it happened, we didn\u2019t think it was as bad as maybe the next day. After that, it was just kind of seeing where the symptoms were and where I was at. The team\u2019s played 14 games, and I\u2019ve only played in five. It\u2019s never fun to miss that much. But happy that I\u2019ve taken the time and seeing the progress now.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLellan said Kane looked good in practice Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made contact with him a couple times about how he felt,\u201d McLellan said. “He said he felt pretty good, so I think that\u2019s positive. But that decision will be made tomorrow when we get a little more information.\u201d<\/p>\n
Detroit has gone 5-4-0 without Kane. The good news for the Red Wings is that they entered Thursday one point behind the Montreal Canadiens for first place in the Atlantic Division. But only six points separated first from last in the Atlantic, and first from last in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople want to talk about playoffs and different things like that,\u201d Kane said. \u201cI think the focus more in here was just about getting off to a good start and putting ourselves into a good position, so I think we\u2019ve got to be happy with where we\u2019re at now. It\u2019s, \u2018Can we [maintain] it the rest of the way?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
McLellan said the Red Wings need to be engaged against the Rangers (6-6-2). He doesn\u2019t want to hear they\u2019re coming back from a long trip and need to get their legs going.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t buy that at all,\u201d McLellan said. \u201cLike, that excuse is for losers. We never talk about it after a team plays really well when they come home after a road trip. We usually only talk about it after a crappy game, and we don\u2019t plan on having a crappy game, so there\u2019s no excuses.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Red Wings are starting a four-game homestand and a stretch where they will play nine of their next 11 games at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to perform well here and find ways to put points in the bank,\u201d McLellan said. \u201cThere\u2019s, as you see in the standings, very little separation in our division and our conference. Everybody\u2019s in it, so you better keep your foot on the gas to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a bad start last season, he was not on the U.S. roster for the 4 Nations Face-Off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-267255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}