NEW YORK — Patrick Kane slipped up once Thursday.
The newest Rangers forward, asked about his decision to leave the Blackhawks, described the Hawks’ drastic rebuild as just “the situation we’re in.”
But if Kane using first-person present tense for the Hawks indicated one thing, everything else about Thursday indicated something else: Kane is a Ranger now, as strange as that reality is.
“It’s never really real until it happens, and then once it happens, it starts getting very real,” Kane said. “But [I’m] excited for the experience, the opportunity, the chance to play with a different organization [and] different players. Just excited about it all.”
It has become very real, very quickly. There was Kane talking about bringing the Rangers their first Stanley Cup since 1994 and hyping up the likes of Chris Kreider and Filip Chytil and — most painfully for Hawks fans — former Blues nemesis Vladimir Tarasenko.
There was Knicks star (and Stevenson alum) Jalen Brunson wearing a Kane jersey for his arrival to the Knicks-Nets NBA game Wednesday, having FaceTimed with Kane earlier in the day.
There was Kane taking the ice Thursday at Madison Square Garden wearing blue, hearing roars from an anticipatory crowd and eventually eschewing his end-of-warmups puck toss to hand a puck to his 2-year-old son, clad in his own miniature Rangers sweater.
There was Artemi Panarin — one of Kane’s closest friends since their overlap on the Hawks six years ago — back on the wing opposite Kane, just with Vincent Trocheck now in the middle, in the Rangers’ disappointing 5-3 loss to the Senators.
There was only Patrick Kane Sr. — Kane’s father and biggest supporter — missing, and that was because Kane’s sister had a baby Wednesday. In the future, the drive across New York from Buffalo will be much easier for him.
Indeed, it has become very real. Patrick Kane is a New Yorker, not a Chicagoan. In fact, it couldn’t be more real.
“It’s different, right?” Kane said. “You have to get used to it. It kind of reminds me of when you go play for Team USA at the world championships or Olympics, things like that. You’re putting on different equipment, different gear; you’re trying to get used to it. But [I was] always coming back to that Blackhawks gear, so it’s a little bit different this time around.”
Kane said the Rangers had been on his radar for a “long time,” as his disappointment when they instead acquired Tarasenko on Feb. 9 reflected.
But he insisted his comments about that were “overblown.” In any case, it seemingly motivated Kane to erupt for seven goals in his final four games with the Hawks, proving his nagging hip injury wasn’t too nagging.
And that, in turn, rejuvenated the Rangers’ interest and prompted them to trade Vitali Kravtsov, waive Jake Leschyshyn and perform some other salary-cap gymnastics to make room for him.
Kane still wavered “back and forth in your head a bunch of times” about his plans for the future, but he ultimately committed to this eastward move.
“It wasn’t like I was extremely mad about the situation when they made the move for Tarasenko,” he explained. “It just didn’t seem like it was in the cards [for the Rangers] to still be an option for me. Now, obviously, I’m very happy that they made that move. ... I’m excited to play with ‘Vladdy.’ He’s an amazing player.
“When they said [the Rangers still] could be a possibility, that obviously got me excited again. I feel bad — I feel like the guys have been playing short here for a while just to bring me in. But hopefully it’s worth it in the long run. [I’m] definitely happy they were able to move some money around and make it work.”
Having sat out seven days since what turned out to be his final Hawks appearance, Kane admitted he felt some rust in his 19:36 of ice time Thursday.
He finished with five shots — including four on goal — but zero points, two giveaways and a minus-two rating. He had two decent, if not exactly golden, opportunities in the final 10 minutes with the Rangers trailing 4-3, but a tip attempt missed the net and a low wrist shot was stopped by Senators goalie Cam Talbot.
“First game as a Ranger, it was a pretty cool experience,” he said. “Obviously I would’ve liked to play a little bit better and come out with a win.
“You try to remember your roots [with Panarin] and everything, but it’s the chemistry we had from six, seven years ago. I don’t think it’s something that’s going to happen overnight, but we’ll find it.”
His individual performance might’ve been forgettable, but his New York welcome wasn’t. Fans screamed every time he touched the puck, was shown on the video board or generally did anything at all.
He was undoubtedly the main attraction. New York’s main attraction.
“Guys were whispering about it around the room a little bit, but I didn’t really know what it was going to be like until I got out there,” Kane said. “It was pretty special.”
