Knight makes 32 saves, Blackhawks shut out Jets to spoil Toews' return

CHICAGO -- Spencer Knight made 32 saves, and the Chicago Blackhawks won 2-0 against the Winnipeg Jets at United Center on Monday to spoil the return of Jonathan Toews.

Toews was playing in Chicago for the first time since his last game with the Blackhawks on April 13, 2023. He had 883 points (372 goals, 511 assists) in 1,067 games with the Blackhawks, captaining the team to Stanley Cup championships in 2010, 2013 and 2015. The Blackhawks chose not to re-sign Toews following the 2022-23 season. He took the next two years off and returned to the NHL this season with his hometown Jets on a one-year contract.

“It blew me away, obviously,” Toews said. “Yeah, it’s a crazy moment, again, getting that reception from the fans. Pretty special. Something I’ll remember forever.”

The Blackhawks honored their longtime captain with a video tribute during the first TV timeout at 7:37 of the first period. The crowd responded with an ovation that lasted three and a half minutes.

“It felt like forever,” he said. “I’m not sure what to do after awhile in that situation. The boys kept telling me to do another lap. So, yeah, pretty special.

“I tried to do my best to take it all in, really savor it, to really appreciate the love from the fans. Obviously, I spent some special years here in Chicago, and that’s what made playing for the Blackhawks so great, winning championships and all that stuff aside, just playing for a sports team in this city calling this home for as long as I did, it was just incredible. Can’t thank them enough. Always be home and have a special place in my heart.”

It was Knight’s third shutout of the season and eighth in the NHL. Jason Dickinson and Connor Bedard scored for the Blackhawks (20-22-7), who had lost three in a row and four of five.

“We talked [Sunday] just about the understanding that we’re kind of in that last stretch, whatever, 30-plus games, 40 games or whatever, and they’re only going to get harder,” said Chicago coach Jeff Blashill. “This is what it starts to look like, and you have to find ways to win games 2-1, 3-2, be comfortable in those games.

“So, it was kind of fitting that that’s the way the game went tonight because that’s the reality of it. If we want to end up becoming a playoff team and winning in the playoffs, that’s where you have to do it. You have to be OK sometimes with nothing happening on a shift and taking what’s given, and I thought we did a pretty good job.”

Connor Hellebuyck made 22 saves for the Jets (19-23-6), who were 4-0-1 in their previous five games.

“Our zone time was great,” said Jets coach Scott Arniel. “The opportunity to attack the net, I think in the second [period], we could have done that a little more frequently. I thought in the first period we did a great job of getting it out of the piles in the corners, getting it to the top. The ‘D’ were feeding into the net front. There were a lot of rebounds, a lot of loose pucks that we didn’t get to, Chicago got to.

“At the end of the day, we get in games like that. They’re tight like that. Chicago was really defending the net front. We’ve got to find a way. We’ve got to find a way to get inside, get those rebounds, get the greasy goals, We’ve been doing a really good job of that recently. We’ve got to find a way to even that score.”

Dickinson put the Blackhawks ahead at 13:21 of the second period. He picked up a bouncing puck in the offensive zone after it was flipped in by Ryan Donato and put a wrist shot between Hellebuyck’s pads.

“They’ve got a really good team over there,” said Blackhawks defenseman Alex Vlasic, who assisted on both goals. “They’re really disciplined and we knew it was going to be a low-scoring game. We took the chances given to us and tried our best to kind of shut down their offense and knew it was going to be a playoff-type of hockey game where it’s 1-0, 2-0. We need to learn how to win those games and we did a good job of that tonight.”

Bedard scored into an empty net at 18:40 of the third period for the 2-0 final.

It was Bedard's 20th goal of the season and his first since Dec. 10. He missed 12 games from Dec. 13-Jan. 7 because of an upper-body injury.

“It matters,” Blashill said. “I thought he certainly had a number of chances since he’s been back. I think he’s set up a number of people. He could have certainly more points. It feels somewhat similar to the beginning of the season when he was playing good hockey and probably not getting rewarded production-wise with the way he was playing. So it was good for him and good for (Ilya Mikheyev0 to be unselfish there and pass him the puck and good for ‘Bedsy’ to bury that. Hopefully that just starts a waterfall of production.”

NOTES: Toews was minus-1 with two shots on goal in 18:06 of ice time. … Jets defenseman Elias Salomonsson was a late scratch for the Jets because of illness. He was replaced by Isaak Phillips. … Bedard became the fifth player in Blackhawks history to begin his NHL career with the franchise with three consecutive 20-goal seasons. He joined Patrick Kane (13 seasons), Toews (12), Denis Savard (10) and Darcy Rota (four).