Jonathan Toews tipped a puck past Jake Allen for his first goal Thursday. | AP Photos
For the first time since August 2020, Toews scored a goal for the Hawks on Thursday, releasing months of pressure.
MONTREAL — The weight of 16 months, 25 games and 45 shots finally lifted off Jonathan Toews’ shoulders Thursday with one deflection of the puck.
For the first time since Aug. 18, 2020, in the Edmonton playoff bubble, Toews finally scored a goal. Positioned next to Canadiens goalie Jake Allen, the Blackhawks captain tipped in a Seth Jones shot-pass on the power play at 13:48 of the second period, giving the Hawks a lead they’d never relinquish in an eventual 2-0 win.
He celebrated by raising his stick and then arm-hugging Patrick Kane, two things he’d done many times before over the course of 390 career regular- and post-season goals. But this one was slightly more significant.
“It felt good,” Toews said. “It’s definitely a weird thing to have the whole team probably wanting to jump on the ice to celebrate with you. That’s not a good sign.”
Almost every Toews media appearance this fall has been dominated by questions about — and a lack of answers for — his goal drought, which inched past his previous career long (13 games) all the way back on Nov. 7. He’d called himself “not satisfied,” “not happy” and basically every other synonym for “frustrated” in the dictionary.
The heaviness with which it was weighing on his confidence was understandable. For a while, as miraculous goalie saves followed post hits followed goals negated upon review, all conspiring together to keep him off the scoreboard, he appeared cursed to never score — even though he was generating plenty of chances.
He entered Thursday with 45 shots on goal, the most among all NHL forwards without a goal. Jets forward Blake Wheeler (with 43) was the only other player remotely close.
AP Photos
Jonathan Toews has celebrated many goals with Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat, but this particular celebration meant a bit more than usual.
Toews had been trying admirably to keep the drought off his mind and to keep contributing in other areas. He’d done so, to an extent: he leads the Hawks by a mile with a 57.0% faceoff win percentage, and he ranks fourth in even-strength shot-attempt ratio (50.5) and seventh in even-strength scoring-chance ratio (48.4%). But a sliver of his cerebrum was always aware of that zero in the ‘G’ column.
“I don’t think you can ever go out and think of the end result,” he said. “You’ve got to be in the play and stay present with whatever’s going on… You can’t really think of scoring goals. You’ve just got to play hockey. [But] getting that first one definitely helps focus on that process.”
And outside of games, that sliver focused on the goal drought was more like an entire lobe. He tried to imagine wrist shots and slap shots, intentional deflections and own-goals, wraparounds and rebounds and every other method of scoring.
The way it finally happened — a deflection from one foot away — was hardly highlight-reel material. He didn’t mind that, though.
“I’ve just been trying to get the feel and visualize getting the puck on my stick [and] on the net,” he said. “You have to see yourself scoring goals a lot of different ways, especially when they’re not going in, to try to get over that hump. I’ll take them however I can at this point.”
When he returned to the bench, he shook his shoulders to throw off the figurative monkey at last; he later quipped he had “three or four guys clawing the monkey off” for him.
Running the search query for most shots without a goal on Friday returns a list with no Toews in sight — just two Hawks teammates, Philipp Kurashev (32 shots without a goal) and Ryan Carpenter (28 without a goal), now in fourth and fifth.
It’s a reminder just how much the Hawks still need to improve offensively. But at least the rest of the team now has proof that it’s possible.
“Everybody felt relief that he scored,” interim coach Derek King said.
