Patrick Kane could look down at his red jersey Thursday — the first day of Blackhawks training camp — and see the familiar logo that adorned his chest for so many triumphant years.
He could pick his head up, gaze around the rink and see the same familiar surroundings at Blackhawks Ice Center that he visited so often between its opening in 2017 and 2023.
But if he looked any closer, the familiarity began to break down. Almost every person he interacted with throughout the day — including everyone he skated past or received a pass from — was not a Hawk the last time he was.
“A lot of it is so familiar,” Kane said Thursday. “And then you get out there on the ice and look at all the players, and everyone is completely different.”
Teuvo Teravainen is the only current Hawk that Kane ever spent significant time with, and they last played together in 2016. He only briefly overlapped with Alex Vlasic and Arvid Soderblom near the end of his first tenure.
That makes Kane, in 2026, simultaneously a franchise legend and the new kid at camp.
It’s a strange dynamic, but Kane has realized he kind of enjoys that. The young Hawks are also getting comfortable enough to make fun of him, which is an auspicious sign.
“It’s a happy group, and there’s good vibes,” Kane said Tuesday. “These guys want to be good players. It’s pushing me in a way, too. [I’m] 37, turning 38 and accomplished some great things, but it still feels like there’s a lot left on the table and a lot left to accomplish — because these guys haven’t done it and they’re pushing to do it.
“It’s encouraging. Because when you make a decision and sign with the team, [you know] it’s going to be something new. But especially the way the last few weeks have gone with the team — on and off the ice, hanging out with them, being around them — it feels like the right decision.”
In fact, there actually is something vaguely familiar to Kane about this team’s unity and camaraderie.
“There’s some similarities with the way we came up in 2007, 2008, 2009,” he said. “You’re a young team coming up together, and you’re like best friends in a way. I see that with this group, too.”
Kane has already hit it off with Frank Nazar, who centered his line Thursday. Nazar’s ability to be “in the moment” and push himself to improve with every practice rep has impressed him.
He has already gotten some laughs out of observing energizer bunny Oliver Moore, who somehow beat him to the rink every morning the past few weeks.
“I’m like, ‘I can’t catch this guy,'” Kane said.
And he has already begun building chemistry with “smooth” Roman Kantserov, who skated on his opposite wing Thursday and showed off his English fluency by asking Kane many questions about what he was seeing on the ice.
Nevertheless, Kane has 19 years’ worth of wisdom that these kids can’t possibly have yet. That should be a valuable asset.
“I feel like I can really help them,” Kane said. “[Seeing] the ability and the skill and the talent, I still think there’s another level on top of that if you can, I don’t want to say ‘learn how to play the game,’ but learn different situations. The way to attack offensively, the way to isolate guys, different things like that.”
The Hawks’ coaching staff has almost entirely changed since 2023, too. But Kane does have a preexisting relationship with Jeff Blashill from international tournaments in 2018 and 2019 that could prove useful.
“The thing I like about [Blashill] is he’s going to be hard on me, and he’s going to be hard on everyone. [There’s] no favoritism,” Kane said. “He’s doing whatever he can to get the best out of the group, and that’s the way it should be.”