Chicago Blackhawks forward Patrick Kane is off to one of the hottest starts to a season in recent memory, and certainly in his own career. Already riding a franchise-record 22-game point streak and leading the NHL in scoring, Kane went into last night’s game against the Nashville Predators looking to increase both totals, and he didn’t disappoint the hometown Chicago fans.
MUST SEE: Patrick Kane Nets 600th Point, Continues Streak
Kane’s empty-net goal to seal the victory for Chicago was his 17th of the season, two being league leader Jamie Benn of the Dallas Stars, while it also marked his 43rd point, four ahead of Benn and his Dallas linemate Tyler Seguin.
To put Kane’s 23-game point streak in historical context, while he holds the record for longest streak by an American and longest streak by a Blackhawk, he still has a ways to go before breaking into the top ten longest streaks of all time (currently a five-way tie between Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman, Guy Lafleur, and Paul Coffey at 28 games). The record is of course held by Gretzky at 51 games, while Mario Lemieux is second at 46 games.
While it’s unlikely Kane can continue producing at this rate for the balance of the regular season, he’s currently on pace for 50 goals and 126 points, which would put him far ahead of Benn’s Art Ross-winning total of 87 points last season. Currently netting points at a rate of 1.53 per game, Kane could see that number fall to just 0.81 over the remaining 54 games in the regular season and still reach Benn’s 2014-15 mark, hopefully easing some of the consternation over the lowest league-leading total in decades last year.
It seems unlikely Kane’s offense could tumble that far though, as his goal was also his 600th career NHL point in 604 games, a tidy total just under a point per game (0.99). Since entering the NHL as a junior phenom in 2007-08, only seven players (in order, Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Henrik Sedin, Joe Thornton, Martin St. Louis, and Daniel Sedin) have scored more points than Kane.
He’s also the first player taken in the 2006 draft to reach 600 points by a very wide margin, as Benn (who is becoming more and more inexorably linked to Kane) is second with 398 points after a four-point effort of his own on Tuesday night to keep the scoring race interesting.
This amazing run has also catapulted Kane up the standings when it comes to American scorers, where he now sits 35th all-time, 4th among active players. While he’s a long way from catching Brett Hull atop the leader board (Kane is about 791 points behind Hull), Kane has a chance to get close, as his career points per game is 4th behind only Pat Lafontaine, Hull, and Joe Mullen, and ahead of such American stars as Mike Modano and Jeremy Roenick. In that context, Kane, who has rarely been included in the “World’s Best Player” debate is, with this remarkable season, not only firmly entrenched in that discussion, but maybe making a case for himself to be considered one of the greatest American players of all-time.
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