Officially? Unofficially? To be honest I’m still not too sure but I got an ESPN update saying that the deal was done so we’re rolling with it. Alright baby, Patty Kane, how about it? I gotta say, I can’t help but feel like my all-time favorite Always Sunny quote once the initial “holy crap we did it” wore off.

It quickly dawned on me after it happened that now it’s really cup or bust and there is no alternative or else we wasted the great Patrick Kane. Now, this may come as a shock to you, but the Rangers have some holes that need to be addressed. I love my team, truly, but we just can’t be blinded by love and ignore some glaring issues we have on the ice. We’ve still yet to see Kaner in red white and blue so I definitely want to avoid making assumptions on how things are going to go, but we need things to gel really fast.

I saw some speculation on what the line situations would be like and the way it seems its gonna be Kane & Bread with Trocheck in the middle and I love the sound of that line. Vladdy T is staying up top with Krieds and Mika, The kids got the third line, and then we got the grinders on the bottom to bring it home. That’s a pretty solid lineup in my eyes, at least from a forwards perspective but come May and June could really work to our disadvantage if a solid D core is something we’re unable to piece together. Igor’s gonna Igor, but we can’t rely on him alone and just leave him to get shelled night in and night out while we score 10 goals to win.

I truly can’t help but feel like the kid on Tinder that talked a big game and finally shows up to the booty call just to soil his pants and walk away in shame. I knew 88 would be a Ranger ever since last year, but I really, really don’t want to waste Patrick Kane and would love to avoid a Gretzky on the Blues situation. I really don’t know why I feel like this (probably years of unfulfilled playoff runs), but we’re talking about the greatest American-born hockey player to ever put on a pair of skates. People always love to point out QBs in a different team’s jersey that doesn’t make sense like Joe Montana on the Chiefs or Namath on the Rams and I just can’t help but think that this is exactly what’s going to happen to 88. There was even a part of me that didn’t want him on the Rangers and wanted to see Kane stay in Chicago to finish off the run with Toews and ride off into the sunset with a statue in front of the United Center looking like the greatest NHL cover that never was.

But hey, what if we get another Marty St. Louis on our hands and this time around actually finish the job? I think we have a hell of a shot in making that happen. This line up is about to be some of the highest octane hockey in the league and at just the right time.

It’s sounding like Kane is set to play his first game tomorrow night in Philly which I think will be a great way to get acclimated to the lineup. I don’t want to take any unnecessary shots here because I for whatever reason respect and like Philly sports, but it’s been a rough go for Torts, Hayes and the Flyers. I won’t sit here and say this is a guaranteed 2 points, but it’ll definitely give GG and the boys a chance for some “live reps” so to speak if you catch my drift. We got the Sens Thursday night which I think will be a similar situation to the Philly game, and then we get the real test. I said it before and I’ll say it again, Saturday is going to dictate how our season goes, straight up. I know that anything can happen in the playoffs and blah blah blah, but if we can’t at least stay in the game and compete against Boston we’re going to stand no chance come to the springtime showdown. Granted I guess you can make the argument we didn’t belong there last year either, so fuck it mask off.