from Mark Lazerus of the Chicago Sun-Times,

He hasn’t scored a goal in nine games, and he currently is tied for 10th in the league in scoring (with Panarin and Philadelphia’s Wayne Simmonds) with 29 points in 32 games. He has just eight goals this year — eight fewer than Marian Hossa, six fewer than Anisimov, five fewer than Panarin, and the same amount as Richard Panik.

Kane is on pace for just 20 goals, and, well, that’s just not good enough.

“Need a few more passes from those guys,” Kane joked of Anisimov and Panarin. “No, it’s a little frustrating. You always want to be trying to score goals, especially when that’s what you’re counted on to do.”

By any reasonable measure, Kane is having another very productive season. But he raised the bar so high last season — with career highs of 46 goals, 60 assists, and 106 points — that “very productive’ no longer feels sufficient. Through 32 games last season, Kane had a staggering 19 goals and 27 assists, and had just wrapped up a 26-game point streak, the longest ever for a Hawks player or an American-born player. He went on to win the scoring title and the Hart Trophy as the league MVP.

And now that he knows he can be a 40-goal scorer and a 100-point producer, Kane expects to do it every year.

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