Kane to miss game with injury for first time since 2015 originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
Despite participating in Friday’s morning skate, Patrick Kane said he will not play against the Arizona Coyotes at the United Center because of a lower-body injury.
If he really wanted to, Kane said he could play, but it doesn’t make sense to push it. He’s going to take the extra time to heal.
“I felt pretty good for the most part,” Kane said. “I don’t think it’s anything extremely long-term or anything like that, so just take it day by day here.”
“To be honest with you, I probably could play but it’s just certain situations it’s kind of lingering pain. It is what it is right now, but I think I should be through it here quick enough.”
This will be the first time Kane misses a game for injury-related reasons since breaking his collarbone in February 2015. He has missed five regular-season games since then, but four of them were because he was placed in COVID protocol and the other was because of an illness.
“I think he mentioned he probably shouldn’t have played last game,” Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson said. “He thought he could make it through and he doesn’t want to put the team in that position again. It was trying to pull nails out of an old log. He just didn’t want to say he couldn’t go, but that’s an athlete in him.
“For him to last and have the durability, it shows his character. He’s probably been banged up over the years and hasn’t missed. He is hurting a little bit, you can see it when you see him walking around. So I think it might be the best move today.”
Kane left after the second period of Tuesday’s 4-1 loss to Tampa Bay and was ruled out for the third period. Kane confirmed the aggravation came from Evgeny Svechnikov’s hit late in Sunday’s 5-2 loss to San Jose.
Lukas Reichel is expected to slide into Kane’s spot on the top line with Max Domi and Andreas Athanasiou, who missed practice on Thursday because of a non-COVID illness but was on the ice for morning skate on Friday. Reichel, who was called up on Wednesday with Brett Seney, will also be on the second power-play unit.
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