Follow Patrick Kane’s every move in his Red Wings debut

DETROIT — It’s just after 6:30 p.m., and while it may just be warmups, there’s a buzz inside Little Caesars Arena.

Along the wall near the Red Wings bench, Detroit’s newest star picks up a puck and flips it over in the front row. This is Patrick Kane’s first appearance in a Red Wings uniform, and fans packed the building for the occasion. In the lobby, some fans are already wearing his jersey before he takes his first shift. Even in Kane’s new dressing room, his arrival means something.

“His personality and the aura that he carries, you can really feel it just being around him,” defenseman Jake Wallman said Thursday morning. “It’s the first, like, Superstar That I’ve played with before.”

They call Kane “Showtime,” and that’s what all these people saw. More specifically, they came to see if he could recapture his magic from hip resurfacing surgery, with little positive precedent in the sport.

Across the ice from the bench, a line of young fans sees Kane approaching and rages, hitting the glass. Ken’s fist hits the glass in return, resulting in at least one more night.

As the team pushes towards its line, Keane connects with old teammate Alex DeBrincat, in a give-and-go play, which DeBrincat slots home. The opportunity to rediscover the chemistry between himself and DeBrincat was one of the factors that brought Kane to Detroit, where he chose the rookie Red Wings as the team he would return with.

Ken takes some tight turns and looks smooth. He held the catch a bit on his own, and after going in for a snap, he and DeBrincat took turns setting each other up for a one-timer, two each, through the slot.

By 6:45 p.m., most of his new teammates were off the ice. But Kane stays until the final seconds, flips the final puck into the stands and exits the ice just before Larkin. His long road back from surgery is now complete.

Now, it’s Showtime time.

7:05 PM: As the Red Wings make their pre-game debut, Detroit coach Derek Lalonde has been preparing Kane for a fitting reception in Hockey Town. In Kane’s first meeting with the local media, he said he felt he needed to be in a city where hockey was very popular – somewhere that could get the fans excited.

If selling out tickets for the debut wasn’t enough, locals told Keane how excited they were by giving him a standing ovation when he was introduced as a starter. Soon after, a fan appears on the jumbotron with a sign reading “Showtime in the D.”

7:08 pm: The ball drops, and Kane is there with DeBrincat and Joe Velino. The Red Wings are playing the lowly San Jose Sharks, one of the last-place finishers in the league this season, but the puck drop has the feel of a big game because of the anticipation.

But the first transformation keeps it simple. Kane connects with a stretch pass to DeBrincat, but nothing happens and the transition comes and goes very quickly. Kane comes off the ice in 37 seconds. But the first one got out of the way.

7:12 pm: Although it’s never certain whether the two players will be able to get back to chemistry together, Kane certainly knows where DeBrincat is early. He pushed it into another transition pass, and soon after, took the extra tempo to slow the play down and find DeBrincat as a trailer.

For a moment it looks like this will lead to a scoring opportunity, but as DeBrincat moves to the slot, a poke check stifles the look. The eager crowd groans, but the early signs are positive.

Despite all the concerns surrounding Rick Kane, the biggest reason for optimism is that he will still have a world-class hockey mind. There are two transformations, and this is already clear.

7:25 pm: Off the faceoff, DeBrincat fired the puck over the net, and Kane got on the ensuing loose ball to send it to Shayne Gostisbehere at the point. Gostisbehere was a rookie when Kane won the Hart Trophy as league MVP in 2015-16, and a very good one at that – he was a Calder Trophy runner-up. Both are in very different stages of their careers right now, but the hope is that the two can help bring the kind of dynamic element the Red Wings have lacked for the better part of the last decade.

Gostisbehere sends the ball back to Kane on the flank, and he holds the ball in his hand for a moment before firing a shot wide. However, the Red Wings got it back, and Gostisbehere once again found Kane on the wing, sending a pass to DeBrincat at the top of the left circle. The shot was blocked, but here’s what I liked to see: Kane calling for a shot already, just over 10 minutes into the game. He won’t get his full swagger back right away, but for a player like him, you want to see him want the puck.

Earlier in the shift, he also made some calls about recalls. It wasn’t a huge hit, but it’s still a moment you look forward to after any kind of major rehab.

“I’ve been training for this for a few months, so obviously it’s different in a game, but you never know what to expect,” Keane said. “The hits might be a little harder, a little more forceful, but overall I felt good.”

7:35 pm: The Sharks are applying pressure, outscoring the Red Wings 12-4 over the first 15 minutes. Shortly after San Jose’s tough game, Kane’s first big chance of the night came. Larkin fires a puck up the ice, placing it off the end boards to DeBrincat, who finds veteran Jeff Petrie with Kane trailing behind him. Petry has a difficult play with a defender on him, and the defender gets enough of his pass to Kane to prevent it from getting to him in stride. But Kane surrounds her and shoots the ball, but Mackenzie Blackwood stops it.

8:01 PM: It’s the second period now, and the Red Wings are going on the power play. This is one of the ways Kane can help Detroit the most — using his vision to split opponents up. The Sharks draw and rally with Kane’s defence, perhaps an early test of the hip, and he gets the takeaway.

At the other end, Kane stands on the right side and sees David Perron through the opening. He fires his pass, but it is taken out of play by a Sharks defender. The first unit comes from ice.

8:06 PM: Kane is on the move now, taking another bout with DeBrincat and Larkin. He made a great read and threaded a pass into the corner on the forecheck and quickly found DeBrincat in the slot. DeBrincat nearly found Larkin at the back door, if not for another San Jose stick that disrupted the play at the last second. However, the shift continues, and after Kane makes a small turn with Larkin, he looks for Ben Chiarot who advances towards the back post. Then, with Detroit still in possession again, Kane got a look of his own set up by DeBrincat.

When that shot missed and cleared the area, Detroit reset, and Keane Clem found Costin in the slot for a first-class chance that costin shot off the post. It’s a monster transformation. He looks a lot like Patrick Kane.

8:15 pm: Costin didn’t have to stay in the post for long, as he won the puck battle in front of the net to score the Red Wings’ first goal of the game. And it’s just in time. Despite the huge impact Kane can have in Detroit, his arrival means someone will soon have to come out of the lineup when JT Compher returns from a minor injury. Costin is the prime candidate, as a starting lineup player without playing much of a special teams role. Making an impact with an early goal is huge for his case to stay in the lineup.

8:18 pm: Kane finds DeBrincat for another top-notch chance, this time swiping a shot down the goal line and firing it at DeBrincat in the left circle. I got sidetracked from playing.

8:23 pm: The Red Wings got back on the board, with another of Detroit’s current midfielders, Daniel Sprung — who gave up his jersey number in favor of Kane — firing a puck into the net off the wall and getting a nice rebound from Michael Rasmussen for a two-goal score. -0 lead. It’s a lucky outcome, but it opens the doors wide. Rasmussen dropped another puck 13 seconds later, this one off a Chiarot point shot. 36 seconds later, Lucas Raymond buried Chiarot’s pass to make it 4-0 to the Red Wings.

San Jose pulls Blackwood out of the net. Defeat is underway. right?

8:28 pm: With Detroit up by four, Sharks’ Marc-Edouard Vlasic takes an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, and the Red Wings go on the power play, looking to continue it.

But as Larkin looks for DeBrincat on the entry, the pass is broken up and the Sharks take it the other way for a short-handed goal. Then something crazy happens. The Sharks get another weird rush, and Fabian Zetterlund buries this one as well. It was two short-handed goals with the same intensity that San Jose played, sapping Detroit’s momentum.

Then, just 10 seconds after the power play ended, the Sharks scored a third goal on another double, this time with Nico Storm doing the damage. It’s 4-3, after a combined six goals in a span of 3 minutes and 1 second – just one second off the NHL record.

By the end of the half, the score would be tied 4-4, with Sturm adding another goal in the final 30 seconds of the half.

9:05 PM: Kane had his best chance less than five minutes into the third period, sending a pass into the offensive zone that left him one-on-one with Sharks backup Kaapo Kahkonen. It’s another great read, and now he has one man to defeat and a mob ready to explode.

He grabs the stick and hits Kahkonen…but he throws it off the post.

But even though that would have been a very special moment in his debut in Detroit, Kane was relaxed about it when asked after the game.

“As an attacking player, you always want to create chances, don’t you?” He says. “So, you can live and die by hitting the post or not taking your chances, but you want to create and you want to play the right way for your team as well. But it was nice to bury that.”

9:21 pm: On a drop pass from DeBrincat, Kane got the puck and hit a shot high. However, the Red Wings regrouped, and Kane once again found himself with the puck in a dangerous area, in the low right circle. He tries to pass a backhand pass to Rasmussen to cut the holeshot, but it goes wide at his feet. Had the pass been correct, it could have been a hat-trick for Rasmussen.

Kane commits a turnover with a cross back pass on the defensive blue line later in the shift but redeems himself by breaking up the ensuing chance with a good stick and gets the exit and safe offload for the change.

9:47 pm: Kane and Perron enter the Red Wings media room. The mood turned somber after the Red Wings fell in overtime 6-5. Loss is not the ideal place for an individual to talk about themselves.

“Overall, I think it was fun for me to get out and play again,” he says. “Obviously it would have been a little better to get the win.”

He bears responsibility for the fateful botched power play that turned the game in the Sharks’ favor. He says the physical aspect “felt right” and that for him, it will be more about getting his timing, understanding the team’s structure “and then doing what I do when I get the puck.” He describes himself as “a little hesitant tonight sometimes,” but says overall he feels great.

Overall, Kane played 16:33, a little more time than the Red Wings planned on playing him. This indicates that they were satisfied with his night as well.

“He looked very comfortable,” Lalonde said. “Obviously he was a little bit rusty, (with) a little more polish in his game, he could have got three (or) four points. He’s probably kicking himself for not doing that. So I definitely think that’s a positive for him tonight.”

Those spots left on the ice certainly indicate rust, but they also speak to how involved Kane is, even in his first game back from major surgery. Ken was right that there were moments of hesitation. But some scenes made you think he might actually be able to look like the old Patrick Kane.

Something like Showtime.

(Patrick Kane Image: Dave Regennick/NHLI via Getty Images)