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That was enough to impress the voters for the award that recognizes a player's performance throughout the entire postseason, not just the finals.
"It's fun to be around a kid like that," forward Patrick Kane said. "He loves to win. He loves to play. He's a great player. And he's had a hell of a year. He's going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future as far as one of the greats of all time."
It is only fitting that Toews led the Blackhawks to their first Stanley Cup title since 1961, ending the longest current drought in the NHL. Toews became the first piece of Chicago's rebuilding process when he was chosen with the No. 3 pick in the 2006 draft.
Kane joined him a year later when he was taken No. 1 overall.
That was just the beginning.
Toews was a key cog in the Blackhawks' drive to consecutive appearances in the Western Conference finals. After putting up 25 goals and 68 points during the regular season, when Chicago won the Central Division and earned the No. 2 seed in the West, Toews carried the Blackhawks farther than they had been in nearly 50 years.
He had one goal and five assists in the four-game sweep of top-seeded San Jose in the conference finals and carried a 13-game point streak into the championship round -- a run that produced seven goals and 18 assists.
"The bigger the setting, the bigger the game. The bigger he seems to rise to that challenge and that occasion," Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said of Toews. "He was a big factor tonight.
"His competitiveness of wanting to be the best he can be every time he hits the ice is noticed."
[Associated Press;
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