Jonathan Toews never has had a start to a season quite like this.
The longtime Chicago Blackhawks center, known more for having overall game than being a pure scorer, scored his seventh goal Thursday night — the game-winner in a 2-1 overtime victory over the Los Angeles Kings.
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That’s a career high through the first 11 games and puts him on pace for what would be a career-best 52 goals.
It’s all the more remarkable given how starkly it contrasts with last season, when he was coming off a missed season because of health issues and went scoreless for the first 25 games.
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“Well, you try to live and learn a little bit and figure out what’s not working,” said Toews, who is on a seven-game point streak going. “I always come in prepared and excited to play, and sometimes when pucks aren’t going in it’s usually just a sign that maybe you’re over-prepared and overthinking things. (I) tend to get myself into those positions a time or two over the years.
“But right now, it’s fun to just go play. I know we were talking about expectations a second ago and there weren’t really any for our team and for myself, especially, this year. I’ve always kind of been talking about taking it one day at a time and just going out there and playing and worrying about the next play, the next shift, and that’s kind of what I’m doing.”
Toews in June 2021 revealed he was diagnosed with chronic immune response syndrome, which saps his energy and leaves him feeling out of sorts, in addition to being a COVID-19 long-hauler.
The situation reminds coach Luke Richardson of his time in Montreal as an assistant coach when Canadiens defenseman Shea Weber battled through multiple injuries between the 2017-18 and 2019-20 seasons: a tendon tear in his foot, knee surgery and an ankle injury.
Yet, Weber posted 14 goals and 19 assists in 58 games in 2018-19, and followed up with 15 goals and 21 assists in 65 games the next season. Weber had six goals and 13 assists in just 48 games in 2020-21, but he had a goal and five assists in 22 playoff games as the Habs reached the Stanley Cup Final.
Richardson called Weber a “real man in the dressing room” for “taking responsibility and taking control and pushing people and pushing himself through ultimate amounts of pain to get to the Stanley Cup.”
“And that kind of reminds me of the same (with Toews),” Richardson said. “He’s driven. He’s driven by winning, he’s driven by success and those guys were used to it before, so nothing (less than that) is acceptable to them, so they push their bodies to that extra limit.”
Richardson said that mindset becomes infectious.
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“Especially (when) young players see that, it’s just helpful for everybody, the organization, the coaching staff,” he said. “It helps the younger players grow into that ultimate kind of athlete, a professional that you want.”
Meanwhile, Blackhawks goalie Arvid Söderblom was the picture of cool, as usual, in what Richardson called “a sloppy game, both teams,” with Söderblom making some key stops under pressure among his 32 saves.
“Way calmer than me, that’s for sure,” Richardson joked. “You saw what I’m trying to explain about his calmness back there and his ability to stay cool and make a big back-door save like he did late in the third period.”
Here are five takeaways.
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The Hawks and Kings played to a stalemate in regulation on second-period goals by Chicago’s Jason Dickinson and L.A.’s Blake Lizotte
A minute and a half into overtime, Sean Durzi blocked Toews’ pass to McCabe and Kevin Fiala caught the deflection.
But Fiala dropped the puck slightly behind him and McCabe seized it and fed Toews for the game-winning goal.
Toews wasn’t quite sure after the game sure how the whole sequence unfolded, but “I know I had Caber going back door a little bit and I think one of their guys got a stick on it and it bounced wherever their defenseman was. Caber turned it over and I got a second chance there.
“I made a really nice play and finished it all off.”
Poor Kevin Fiala, it just wasn’t his night.
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Because he was the victim in another Hawks highlight Thursday.
With 3 minutes and 45 seconds remaining in the third, Söderblom gloved Fiala’s shot off a back-door pass from Rasmus Kupari.
Söderblom could’ve at least spared Fiala the indignity of not realizing who he stopped.
“I don’t know who shot that puck, that glove save in the end there, (but) that felt good,” he said. “That was a game-winning save.”
Söderblom was in position for the biggest moment of his young career — all of six games old, dating to last season — because of injuries to Petr Mrázek (groin) and Alex Stalock (concussion).
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“Of course you want to do your best and be up here,” he said. “That’s where everyone wants to be. I just try to take it day by day and do my best every chance I get and I think I’ve been that so far and I plan on keeping doing that.”
Eventually Mrázek and Stalock will return, and the Hawks will be forced to make a decision.
“I’m trying my best to (make) a hard job for them to not play me,” Söderblom said. “I feel great in the net. I’m just trying to keep it that way.”
Richardson doesn’t want him to get in over his skis, however.
“He can still work on his game and become better, but for me I think it’s about the amount of reps,” Richardson said. “It’s early in the season, we’re still working (on) our game and we’re going to have some holes in it. Until we patch all those holes, might not be the smartest thing to keep him here and play him and let him play some consistent games down there, if we have both of our goalies healthy back in a week or two.”
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The penalty kill entered the game ranked 25th (74.4%), but the number of penalty minutes — 13.4 per game, tied for third with the Minnesota Wild — would put any unit under strain.
One mistake can compound itself. Defenders can get hemmed in and fatigued and then make more mistakes.
“One of the keys is moving your feet and not reaching for pucks,” forward Reese Johnson said. “When you’re moving your feet, it allows you to go through the body and not get your stick in the hands of players.”
Against the New York Islanders, the Hawks’ penalties included tripping, holding and cross-checking, something Richardson called out after recent games.
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Richardson said before Thursday’s game that he doesn’t believe the team is undisciplined, just untimely.
“When we multiply them, we just have a big kill and then we go right back in,” he said. “That’s when it really deflates a team, especially if the other team scores and that’s what happened last game” against the Islanders.
Jason Dickinson followed up Andreas Athanasiou’s goaltender interference call with a cross-checking penalty, and Anders Lee scored the game’s opening goal on the power play.
“We’ve got to make sure we do as much as you can to protect the team and not put them in that position,” Richardson said.
The Hawks did just that Thursday. The only stick penalty they had was Philipp Kurashev’s high-sticking against Trevor Moore in the third period.
A high-sticking by Caleb Jones was reversed after video review determined Arthur Kaliyev lifted Jones’ stick and bloodied Blake Lizotte’s nose.
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Richardson said after the game that players made an effort to keep their feet moving.
Said Richardson: “If you’re not moving your feet or you wait and you’re exhausted or tell yourself you’re tired, usually you stand still for a second and someone goes by and then that’s when you reach out and give them a little tug. And I thought we were much better at that today.
“Unfortunately we got one, but I thought we killed it off and we got one on video review declined, which was great. But I guess we’re lucky that he was bleeding a little bit because then they reviewed it. If he wasn’t bleeding, they probably wouldn’t have reviewed it, and we would have had a penalty. So they did a great job.”
After Thursday night’s games, the Hawks rank second-to-last in shots per game at 25.1. Only the Arizona Coyotes (23.1) are worse.
Spending a lot of time killing penalties certainly doesn’t help, and while shot quality matters more than quantity, the Hawks aren’t even getting as many of those lately.
Richardson pointed to speedy forwards such as Athanasiou and Sam Lafferty managing the puck better by going wide — they’ve been getting knocked off the puck a lot trying to force it up the middle as they enter the zone — or looking for the trailer.
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Richardson added they have to sustain O-zone time by “coming through that neutral zone with more speed,” but the Hawks also had been getting greasy goals with more net-front presence earlier in the season.
“On our power-play goal (Tuesday by Toews), I know it’s a power play, but we had a tipped screen on the goal with Toews and (Taylor) Raddysh, and that’s how you’re going to score goals in this league,” he said. “The goalies are too good if you don’t get in front of the net and take their eyes away and I think that goes well with five-on-five.
“Sometimes we get a little bit on the outside but some of that is just puck possession and creating a cycle and getting movement, but we always have to refill that net-front spot and make sure we have good presence there, not only for a screen but for rebounds and tips.”
Thursday night wasn’t much better in the shot department, outshot 33-19, but the Hawks made them count.
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“That’s something that we can get better at these last few games, just getting entries, dumping it in and all that stuff to get possession and create shots and not passing up those shots,” Toews said. “That translates to more offense, so we’ll just keep doing that and hopefully they keep going in.”
Johnson has played right wing in several combinations on the fourth line, but the most common with MacKenzie Entwistle and Boris Katchouk had a Corsi-for percentage of just 29.03% and expected-goals share of 45% in five-on-five, according to NaturalStatTrick.com.
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Johnson’s line with Katchouk and Jujhar Khaira, which had just six minutes together before Richardson rolled out that alignment again against the Kings, had 41% and 68%, respectively.
Keeping the puck and opposing top line’s offense in check is the job of any fourth line, and for the Hawks it starts with how successful Johnson and Katchouk can be at getting physical.
“My game is definitely physical,” Johnson told the Tribune. “It’s something you can do every game regardless of everything on the ice. … I think that’s huge for our line to be able to get on the forecheck and disrupt pucks.
“Every time we get that puck in, create O-zone shifts and changing (lines) in the O-zone is huge. So I’m going to keep building off that.”