from Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times,

After the Blackhawks’ 4-3 season-ending loss late Tuesday night, after the handshake line with the Golden Knights, after the rest of the Hawks left the ice for good, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane exchanged a quick fist bump.

Toews put his arm around Kane for a brief moment. Then the Hawks’ two leaders went down the tunnel for the final time in the 2019-20 season.

The Hawks were thoroughly outplayed over the past week by the top-seeded Golden Knights, who won the series 4-1 and eliminated the Hawks with Tuesday’s Game 5 victory....

But a sense of positivity and growth nonetheless permeated through Toews, Kane, Duncan Keith and coach Jeremy Colliton’s postgame press conference, the team’s last in this strange yet strangely effective Edmonton, Alberta, bubble setting.

“If things had gone the way they were supposed to, before this entire situation, we wouldn’t have had a chance to play in the playoffs,” Toews said. “So it was a great opportunity for us to come in and play some meaningful hockey, and a lot of guys stepped up the plate and showed what they can do.”

“I just like that we never gave up. That’s been kind of our motto all year,” Kane added. “Just feels weird to be done, you know? Tough to be done with the season.”

read on

Below find the game highlights and handshakes.