Lots of greatness came to celebrate Jonathan Toews

Jonathan Toews ended last week by playing in his 1000th and 1001st career NHL games on the road (all with the Chicago Blackhawks). His 1000th came in Sunrise where they were defeated by the Florida Panthers. They followed that up with another loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Friday night.

Despite the losses, which is expected because they are a bad team, they honored their captain well. He has been one of the best players in franchise history and he is treated as such. When a player reaches 1000 games, it is always special but it is even more with a guy as successful as Toews.

With the Arizona Coyotes in town for a Sunday night game at the United Center, they finally were able to properly honor Toews for this incredible achievement. Per NHL tradition, Toews received his silver stick in a pregame ceremony with his family by his side.

There was a bit of a reunion that also took place during this great event. As they were showing love for Toews some former teammates came out of nowhere. It is always special to see former Blackhawks greats there to celebrate in these big-time events.

Some all-time great Chicago Blackhawks came out to honor Jonothan Toews.

Marian Hossa, Patrick Sharp, Brent Seabrook, and Andrew Shaw all came out to join Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat for a picture with the captain. All of them are former or current alternate captains with the Blackhawks.

It is very fitting with the captain theme behind this Toews ceremony. He is viewed like this because of his all-time great leadership when it comes to the game of hockey. He has led this team for a long time and they have had a lot of success during most of his career.

The only big alternate captain missing was Duncan Keith but it is impossible to get him in attendance when he is still in the National Hockey League. Outside of him, there was a lot of Blackhawks greatness to see Toews receive the silver stick.

Jonathan Toews is going to walk into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. He was an incredible young captain to win the Stanley Cup once, let alone three times in six years. He also won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the playoffs in 2010 as he was the team’s best player in the tournament. He also has a few other pieces of individual hardware on his mantle.

There was a game to play after this special event. The Coyotes, like the Blackhawks, are a very bad team right now. It turned out to be a good game though as it came down to the wire. The Hawks were down 2-1 late before Patrick Kane was able to tie it.

From there, the two teams found themselves in overtime. It was a good effort to get there and the overtime period was incredibly entertaining. There were chances galore but nothing was able to beat the goalies.

That came until the final minute of the overtime when the Yotes scored an overtime goal on the power play to take the win. It was the fifth straight loss for Chicago but the rebuild is going to get worse before it gets better. Despite the outcome, it was a great night honoring number 19.