from Mark Lazerus and Scott Powers of The Athletic,

“It’s not like the happiest I’ve been to hear about a trade,” he said. “But I think the Rangers, I definitely pay attention to. Intrigued for obvious reasons. Obviously, they made a move to get him and another big defenseman. You’ve got to respect them going out and trying to make the team better. … If things were going to happen, that was a team I was definitely looking at. It seems like they kind of filled their void and went ahead and made a deal. So it is what it is.”

Kane has yet to inform Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson if he’ll waive his no-movement clause, but it certainly sounded like he’s leaning heavily in that direction. Asked if he should open himself up to more teams, like six, Kane bristled.

“I don’t think the number will be six,” he said. “But obviously you want to do right by the franchise, and the organization here has been amazing to me and given me so much. So you definitely want what’s best for both sides.

“In fairness to Kyle, I haven’t went to Kyle and said, ‘I wanted to go here (or) I want to stay.’ I haven’t gotten to any of that yet. I think we kind of said we’d take it up to the deadline and it’s February and there’s still a few weeks. So I think within the next 10 days or so, we’ll probably get a clearer picture of what’s going to happen.”

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