More history for Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews: 5 takeaways from the Chicago Blackhawks’ 5-2 win

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The Chicago Blackhawks were overdue for some positives, and they came in bunches during a 5-2 win against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

• The Hawks broke an eight-game losing streak.
• They had their first home win since Nov. 3, when they beat the Los Angeles Kings 2-1 in overtime.
• They scored first for just the sixth time this season. In fact, they started with a 4-0 lead.
• Andreas Athanasiou and Taylor Raddysh scored 53 seconds apart in the second period.
• Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews each had a 3-point night.
• Best of all, Kane and Toews teamed up for their 300th regular-season point together.

However, at 8-20-4, bottom of the league, the draft is still the Hawks’ bottom line. The slump seemed to be wearing on the players and first-year coach Luke Richardson, even if draft position is paramount.

“I think it’s really relieving and huge for us,” Richardson said of the win.

“Just knowing that we had a good game and got ourselves out of the loss column is huge, just as a mental advantage,” he said. “And then sitting on it with your family and friends for a few days is going to really help mentally.”

While it seemed like everything went wrong during eight straight losses — whiffed pucks, snapped sticks, bad bounces — the Hawks savored everything that went right in Friday’s win — their’ first since upsetting the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 3.

“It feels good to get a win and feel good about the team’s effort and individual efforts before we’re going into (holiday) break,” Kane said, “So that’s the feeling that hopefully we can get more often the second half of the season.”

Toews added: “Things have been going the way they’ve been going, so it feels good as a group. And I think now going forward we just (have to) consciously make that decision every time we go on the ice to build off of it.”

Here are five takeaways from the win.

While the Hawks were scuffling as a team, Kane was mired in his own slump. After a three-point night against the Rangers on Dec. 3, Kane had a stretch of eight games with no goals and just two assists.

“Unacceptable,” he said before Friday’s game.

He snapped out of it with a goal and two assists against the Blue Jackets.

Kane’s marker to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead was a beauty.

Toews lost a puck battle in the offensive zone, put picked Patrik Laine’s pocket from behind and poked it to Kane. Kane drifted down to the left circle and tucked it into the top left corner for a goal.

Kane wasn’t even supposed to be out there, but he had a hunch.

“Probably stayed out there a little bit too long, but I figured I’d take a chance. Those two guys were holding on to the puck pretty well and we kind of lost it,” Kane said. “Tazer did a good job of getting it back, and I was in a good position where I was coming down the ice.”

Richardson said Kane built off the performance he had against the Nashville Predators on Wednesday, when he took nine shots but came up empty.

“I thought Patrick offensively last game was excellent with the puck but it didn’t go in for him, but tonight he had a little more perseverance,” Richardson said. “I don’t think he liked how that went last game.”

It was a breakout night overall for Kane, who assisted on Max Domi’s goal to give the Hawks a 2-0 lead and Toews’ power-play goal to make it 5-2.

With his 320th multi-point game, Kane sits six points behind Denis Savard (326) on the franchise leaderboard.

Kane’s 103rd three-point (or more) game also tied Mike Modano for second-most by an American-born player. Pat LaFontaine leads with 116.

Kane and Toews logged their 1,000th game together on Sunday and wrapped up the week with their 300th point together.

It all started with Toews’ NHL debut and first career goal Oct. 10, 2007, against the San Jose Sharks. Brent Seabrook had the primary assist and Kane had the secondary helper.

It was the mirror image of Toews’ last goal of his and Kane’s rookie season: Seabrook and Kane with the one-two punch on April 4, 2008, against the Predators.

Here’s a breakdown of how the duo got to 300.

• Toews’ goals: 117
• Kane’s goals: 102
• Both assisted: 81

Kane had the primary assist on 71 of Toews’ goals, according to NHL Stats. Toews reciprocated in the same fashion with 60.

Richardson said Toews and Kane lead the Hawks on Friday in ways beyond the stat sheet.

“ (Kane) and Jonathan on the five-on-three (power play) was excellent and (Toews was) excellent in the faceoff circle, but even more so the way (Toews) played on the bench, how he spoke to the players to get back to the way we needed to play and play the right way,” Richardson said.

The goalie hadn’t played since Nov. 1. Setbacks from his recovery from a concussion kept him out for more than a month and a half and taxed him mentally.

But he looked like his old self, especially when he was jawing with the Predators’ Mathieu Olivier and Erik Gudbranson.

“Got to get into it, get back up to speed,” Stalock said.

The Hawks kept Stalock out of danger for the most part — it got shaky in the third — and Stalock didn’t look like a goalie that had had such a long layoff. He stopped 27 shots and allowed two goals, one on the penalty kill, as he improved to 4-2-1.

“They didn’t have much in the first (period), to be honest, so that was good,” Stalock said of Columbus’ attack. “More of tracking the play and getting up to speed and feeling confident on angles.”

The Hawks put up five goals against Columbus, more than half of the nine combined they had scored in the previous eight games. They also went 2-for-22 on power plays during that span, including 1-for-5 on Friday.

A big part of their breakout came from Kane, who reunited with a healthy Tyler Johnson on the top line with Domi. Kane and Johnson assisted on Domi’s goal, the second score of the game.

Johnson intercepted Erik Gudbranson’s breakout pass to Sean Kuraly and dished to Kane, who found a wide-open Domi for a one-timer.

Circumstances aren’t always going to be tee up chances so nicely, and before the game Kane was calling for a return to grittier play in front of the net like the kind of plays he said Dylan Strome used to make.

“You know that he was going to be around the net, and that’s where he was going to play, down low a lot,” Kane said before the game. “And you can see we may have missed that for a while. It’s on everyone to do that.”

Kane suggested this season’s primary top line with Kane, Domi and Athanasiou may have had limited chances because they all tend to play on the perimeter.

“Tyler’s a little bit different, but when I was with Andreas and Max, you have three guys that want the puck on the outside a little bit. That’s maybe where we struggled a little bit,” Kane said.

Toews was retrieving the puck when Sean Kuraly used his shoulder to launch Toews into the boards. It was a clean hit but several Hawks players rushed to his defense anyway.

Connor Murphy was penalized for roughing Kuraly, and Toews drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against Olivier.

“I always feel bad when you put yourself in a position like that and you don’t absorb the hit right, and the guy’s coming in pretty quick. And so you feel bad when guys have to go in and try and back you up,” Toews said with a smile.