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Kane returns to ‘Hawks practice, wearing knee brace

Patrick Kane

Patrick Kane #88 of the Chicago Blackhawks advances the puck against the Pittsburgh Penguins during an exhibition game at United Center on September 19, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois. The Penguins defeated the Blackhawks 4-3 in a shootout. (September 18, 2013 - Source: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images North America)

There was a welcome sight at Blackhawks practice on Wednesday, as Patrick Kane skated with teammates for the first time since injuring his knee on Mar. 19.

Here’s more, from the Chicago Sun-Times:

His rehab has been right on schedule, and both Kane and Joel Quenneville fully expect him to be “100 percent” in time for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs, either Wednesday or Thursday of next week.

It’s the most significant injury of Kane’s seven-year career, costing him the last 12 games of the regular season (he’s on long-term injured reserve, and ineligible to return until the postseason). But Kane — a guy who hates coming off the ice for a shift, let alone a month — is trying to look at it with a positive slant, considering he has played nearly 150 games since last January, and was admittedly feeling the effects of it before the injury.

Kane said he initially thought he’d be back on the ice later in the game on March 19, that once the pain subsided, he wanted to return. But the team’s medical staff “told me otherwise.”

Kane has missed the last nine games with his injury, and that number will grow to 12 as he won’t play in any of Chicago’s final three regular season games against Montreal, Washington or Nashville. It’ll represent one of the longest stretches of inactivity due to injury in his career and, when he returns, he’ll be playing with a knee brace for the first time.

In spite of all that, Kane remains confident he’ll be ready to go when the playoffs open and is trying to take an optimistic approach to the missed time.

“Some people think it might be beneficial in the long run to maybe take a little break, especially with the year we had last year, and going deep in the playoffs, and the Olympics, and a lot of different things we’ve been doing around here the last year and a half,” he explained. “It’s something you never want to happen, but you try to think of it in a positive way, I guess.”