‘I’m not coming home to ride off into the sunset’: Patrick Kane on Blackhawks return
Chicago Blackhawks fan favorite Patrick Kane spoke publicly about his return to the club for the first time on Friday, and he made it clear that he doesn’t view his second tenure as a farewell tour.
Kane, 37, signed a new two-year contract with the Blackhawks on Thursday, setting the stage for him to return to the United Center as a member of the home team after spending more than three years with two other Original Six franchises, the New York Rangers and Detroit Red Wings.
“Obviously the story is great, coming back to Chicago and being a Blackhawk again,” Kane said Friday. “But most importantly, it was about coming to a team where I think I can fit in well, a team that’s on the rise.”
Born in Buffalo, Kane reportedly chose between the Blackhawks and his hometown Buffalo Sabres in this year’s free agency period. He parlayed his 57 points in 67 games with the Red Wings in 2025-26 into an $8 million average annual salary with Chicago over the next two seasons.
A three-time Stanley Cup champion during his initial stint in Chicago, which ran from 2007-08 to the 2023 trade deadline, Kane will now team up with fellow No. 1 draft pick Connor Bedard in a bid to lift the Blackhawks out of the NHL’s basement. Kane remarked on Friday that he’ll “probably see passes [he’s] never seen before” while playing with Bedard going forward.
The Blackhawks, as well as Kane, haven’t won a playoff series since their last Stanley Cup win in 2015, and Chicago hasn’t hosted an NHL postseason game since 2017. The ‘Hawks have managed fewer than 30 wins in each of their last five 82-game seasons, which includes the first three years of Bedard’s young career.
In 2023, less than four months before they drafted Bedard, the Blackhawks traded Kane to the Rangers. After finishing the 2022-23 campaign on Broadway, Kane underwent career-threatening hip resurfacing surgery; after recovering, he joined the Red Wings, with whom he spent parts of three seasons but never reached the playoffs.
Kyle Davidson was the Blackhawks GM who traded Kane away, and now he’s the one who brought him back. He addressed the media alongside Kane on Friday and spoke about how the Blackhawks have evolved over the past three seasons.
“When Patrick departed a couple years ago, we were in a totally different spot as a franchise,” Davidson said. “We were much more at the outset of this whole project. Now that we’ve got some of these draft picks that have entered and established themselves in the NHL … the time was right with what he provides.”
Kane has skated in 1,369 career NHL games with the Blackhawks, Rangers, and Red Wings, collecting 508 goals and 1,400 points, and he’s added 53 goals and 138 points in 143 playoff contests. But even after two decades dealing with the grind of the NHL, he emphasized that he wants to continue to play at a high level.
“I’m not coming home to ride off into the sunset,” Kane said. “I want to be a big player here.”