National Post (National Edition)

TOEWS’S TEAM

Blackhawks take cue from young captain.

- By Ben Strauss in Chicago

Jonathan Toews celebrated his 25th birthday on Monday by sitting at his locker after Blackhawks practice, a bank of cameras trained on him, a host of microphone­s in his face and a cacophony of questions hurled at him. He spoke with the same measured tones as always.

“We know what we’re up against,” he said on the eve of Chicago’s first playoff game. “This is our real season.”

Toews’ words, accompanie­d by an unflinchin­g stare into a sea of inquisitiv­e faces, seemed to hang in the air for a split second.

“That’s Jonathan,” said Denis Savard, who coached Toews when he entered the league with the Blackhawks in 2007. “He’s young, but he has a presence. When he talks, you listen.”

The Blackhawks enter the post-season with the league’s best record, having completed a splendid but condensed 367-5 season. When the puck dropped Tuesday night at the United Center for Game 1 against the Minnesota Wild, Chicago began its quest to become the first Presidents’ Trophy winner to capture the Stanley Cup since the Detroit Red Wings in 2008.

A roster loaded with talent takes its cues from Toews, its steely-eyed captain.

Toews sounds like an elder statesman even if he does not look the part. The beginning of his playoff beard is little more than a bit of stubble on his sideburns. His smooth cheeks lack the roughness of a grizzled veteran.

But this is Toews’ fifth year wearing the “C” on his No. 19 sweater. Most athletes mature as they grow up. Toews, who earned the nicknamed Captain Serious, has done the opposite: He has grown into his maturity. After Toews’ rookie season, Blackhawks management met with him during the team’s annual off-season fan convention.

At a downtown hotel, Toews was told he would be the team’s captain at the ripe age of 20, the third youngest in league history.

“To be honest, we had talked about it his rookie year, but we decided to wait,” Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman said. “He responded in typical Jonathan Toews fashion. He said, ‘I’m honoured, and I’ll make us proud.’ ”

The Blackhawks advanced to the Western Conference final that season, their first trip to the playoffs in six years. The next season, Chicago won the Stan- ley Cup, its first since 1961, led by Toews and his fellow young standouts Patrick Kane, Patrick Sharp and Duncan Keith.

The last two years have been a bit turbulent for Toews and his team. Twice the Blackhawks squeaked into the playoffs and lost in the first round.

Last season, Toews battled concussion-related symptoms and missed much of the second half of the season. Attempting to drive to practice one day, he crashed his car into a steel support beam for Chicago’s elevated train.

His burning competitiv­e streak and intensity, the very qualities that had made him a leader, did not mesh well with rest and recovery.

“When you’re younger, you try to control every little detail,” Toews said. “You’re trying to score the winning goal every night, but that’s not going to happen. It takes time to learn that.”

Toews said he hoped he had mellowed enough to lose his nickname. Despite the central casting look and demeanor of a straight man in a comedy routine, he insisted Captain Serious was an incomplete portrayal.

“I don’t like it at all,” he said. “Guys have known for a few years that’s how they can push my buttons.”

Ryan Duncan, a teammate and roommate of Toews at the University of North Dakota, can vouch for him.

“I’ve seen him watch Family Guy and laugh his face off,” Duncan said. “With age, he’s loosened up, and that’s a good thing.”

As Toews has found perspectiv­e off the ice, his play on it has reached another level.

He is a Hart Trophy contender this season, among the NHL’s leaders in a litany of statistics. He is tied for the most even-strength goals (19), tied for second in face-offs won (559) and third in plus-minus rating (plus-28).

Toews has always shone brightest on the biggest stages. At the 2007 world junior championsh­ip, he scored three straight goals in a shootout to propel his team to victory. He scored Canada’s first goal against the U.S. in the 2010 Olympic final. Perhaps his most memorable moment in a Blackhawks uniform was an incredible short-handed goal to force overtime in Game 7 of a 2011 first-round playoff series against Vancouver.

This post-season, Toews will attempt to create a new slate of magic moments. He fully expects to because, as he said, that is what captains do.

“It’s the type of responsibi­lity you want,” he said. “You take pride in that.”

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