The Chicago Blackhawks have placed forward Patrick Kane on injured reserve with a lower body injury. The move is retroactive to January 3rd.
The American born winger is set to miss his 3rd consecutive contest Thursday evening as the Blackhawks take on the Colorado Avalanche. It’s believed he suffered the injury after taking a hit from Sharks forward Evgeny Svechnikov on January 1st.
While there’s no current timeline for Kane to return to Chicago’s lineup, head coach Luke Richardson didn’t seem to think it would be a long term stint on the IR.
“[Kane] said he’s feeling much better today,” Richardson said. “For us to bring Entwistle in to replace him on the right side, to take him off IR, we have to put Patrick on, but it’s retroactive because of him being out for a couple games so he’ll still be eligible for Saturday, which is good. He’ll get a full practice in and by the sounds of today, it looks like he should be good by the weekend.”
The 34 year old has registered 27pts (7G, 20A) across 37 contests this season for the last place Blackhawks.
Chicago, who hold a 10-25-4 record, are the current lottery favourites to land phenom Connor Bedard in the upcoming NHL Entry Draft. While rumours that both Kane and longtime Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews could be on the move ahead of this year’s NHL trade deadline have been circulating since the pre-season, nothing concrete has materialized as of yet.
The club is out of action on Friday, but will take the ice on Saturday to take on the Seattle Kraken, which will mark the next opportunity for Kane to return to the lineup.
Photo: Anna Enriquez. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.