Patrick Kane (No 88) of the Chicago Blackhawks scores a goal against Chad Johnson of the Buffalo Sabres during a shootout at the First Niagara Center in Buffalo, New York. (AFP)

By Chris Hine/Chicago Tribune


It was quiet inside the First Niagara Center on Saturday - almost a little too quiet for comfort in an arena with more than 18,000 people, the kind of hush that makes you want to look over your shoulder just to make sure no one is lurking.
From high in the arena, you could hear the shaving of the ice off the players’ skates and could understand what they were saying if you strained your ears a bit.
The only time the crowd made noticeable noise early in the Hawks’ 3-2 shootout victory over the Sabres was when Blackhawks winger and Buffalo native Patrick Kane was involved - and the crowd’s inclination was to boo him. For much of the game, the Hawks’ play mirrored the crowd’s sleepiness, but Kane woke everyone up - including the boo birds - toward the end. He tallied the tying goal on a rare 6-on-3 power play with 33.5 seconds remaining, then scored the lone goal in a shootout as the Hawks escaped Buffalo with two points.
“I didn’t really have any expectations,” Kane said. “Some of the guys were laughing on the bench, saying I was getting booed, and then some guys said I was getting cheered. Sometimes you try to block that stuff out, but you hear it as the game goes on as it gets louder when it comes down to crunch time.”
Crunch time was Kane’s time on Saturday. Kane was playing his first game in his hometown since he was not charged in a sexual assault investigation he faced in late summer and into the fall stemming from an incident at his home in western New York.
Some Hawks fans cheered him when he was announced as part of the starting lineup before the game.
But during the game, fans booed him whenever he carried the puck. And for some stretches Kane hung onto the puck for a little while, which tested fans’ lung capacity.
Kane said he could recall being at Sabres games as a boy when the Flyers’ Eric Lindros was the object of fans’ scorn.
“He got thrown out of the game with 10 minutes left and it wasn’t fun anymore to watch the game because no one was booing him,” Kane said. “I’m on the road team, they’re cheering for the Sabres. It’s nothing you don’t expect. And sometimes that stuff kind of gets you into the game a little more too.”
The Hawks looked in need of a jolt for much of the afternoon, but they got it toward the end of the third period trailing 2-1 when the Josh Gorges and Rasmus Ristolainen each committed penalties at 17 minutes, 27 seconds to give the Hawks a two-man advantage. Then about halfway through that power play, coach Joel Quenneville pulled goaltender Corey Crawford to create a 6-on-3 advantage that paid off when Kane put home a shot off a pass from winger Artemi Panarin.“It’s nothing you ever practice, let’s put it that way,” Quenneville said of the odd power play. “But I liked the guys we had on the ice. “
The Hawks and Sabres then played an overtime that, because of penalties, never featured a second of 3-on-3 hockey before heading to the Hawks’ first shootout of the season.
Kane said he looked at the tape on his stick before he took his shootout shot.
“My forehand was all messed up from the overtime and my backhand was clean, so I thought it might be a good time to try that move,” he said.
Kane, as he usually does in shootouts, skated slowly in on Sabres goaltender Chad Johnson, switching the puck back and forth from forehand to backhand before flinging the puck into the top of the net.
And then the boos rained down.