Patrick Kane had his pick of suitors in free agency this fall. And he wholly embraced the courting process. It was intuition, then, that ultimately drove Kane's decision.
Because of all the offers he received on where to play next, only one team had it all — and couldn't be ignored. Kane's gut told the tale: He was going to be a Detroit Red Wings. «The thing about Detroit was, anytime I really thought about any other team, I would always kind of come back to Detroit,» Kane said. «There's a lot of good situations for you out there and you go back and forth with [some of them] and what you want to do in your head.
But I kind of knew [Detroit] was in my heart, knew it was where I wanted to be.» A year ago, that sentiment could have felt forced.
But now? Consider Kane just one more member of the Red Wings' ever-increasing — and increasingly star-studded — bandwagon. Detroit has been, after all, in a yearslong period of transition.