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 Chicago Blackhawks forward Jonathan Toews celebrates a goal against the Vancouver Canucks with his teammates during Game 4 in Vancouver, B.C. on May 7, 2010. (CARMINE MARINELLI/QMI Agency) |
VANCOUVER — Jonathan Toews has made the ascension to elite player status.
The Vancouver Canucks had a front-row seat for it in Friday night’s 7-4 Chicago Blackhawks victory which has them on the brink of elimination.
Toews tied a Chicago franchise record with five points while pacing the Blackhawks to another one-sided win at GM Place.
“One of those nights where you get some chances and you throw it on net and it happens to go in,” he said almost sheepishly. “It’s nice to get those breaks. You work hard, and don’t always expect to get lucky like that.”
The Blackhawks lead the best-of-seven series 3-1 and head home for Sunday’s Game 5.
While the Canucks were imploding with their plan to be more physically aggressive, Toews and his teammates happily took advantage with four power-play goals en route to grabbing a stranglehold of the second-round Stanley Cup playoff series.
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The Canucks vowed to be more assertive, intending to create more havoc in front of the opposition goal. Instead, they were all too often were guilty of foolish infractions away from the offensive-zone’s blue paint, which seemingly cost them every time.
Toews had a hand in every dagger plunged, too, en route to equaling the Blackhawks record for points in a game he now shares with Stan Mikita and Steve Larmer.
“The bigger the game, the bigger he shows up,” said Patrick Sharp, whose four-point outing was overshadowed. “He’s good in all areas, whether it’s taking a faceoff or killing a penalty, or in the offensive zone like you saw tonight.
“He’s a special player.”
Like a captain should, Toews led his team to pull away for good before the GM Place sellout crowd of 18,810.
He broke open the game 27 seconds into the second period when he scored a goal which was so much of a gift, he should send a Thank You card to Ryan Kesler.
Kesler was chasing the puck dumped into his zone and — we think — intended to redirect it to a defenceman for a potential clearing play. Instead, it went right to Toews, who was alone in the slot.
In one motion, Toews redirected a shot beyond Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo.
“I was so close in, I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t thinking about deking because I couldn’t that quickly. I just shot it on net,” Toews said. “Like I said, one of those nights you get the breaks.”
Toews also extended his point-scoring streak to seven games, in which he’s collected five goals and 17 points. He racked up eight points (3-5-8) in the two games in Vancouver.
Brent Seabrook, Tomas Kopecky and Dave Bolland also scored for the Blackhawks, who finished 4-for-8 with the man-advantage.
“We lost our composure again,” Luongo said. “I don’t know why it happened. We were all on the same page before the game started, and I don’t know. One thing led to another, and we lost our composure again.”
Now the Canucks have to win in Chicago, against a Blackhawks team which has shown great killer instinct when given the chance to close out a series.
“You’ve got a lot of momentum, so you want to go home and take advantage of it,” Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. “We’ve got to be smart, we’ve got to be disciplined. We should be excited about being back home.”
Kyle Wellwood, Daniel Sedin, Alex Edler and Henrik Sedin scored for Vancouver.
Luongo stopped 27 shots, while Chicago’s Antti Niemi made 26 saves.
randy.sportak@sunmedia.ca