With Toews out, Blackhawks beat Ducks 3-2

No Jonathan Toews? No problem.

The Blackhawks, despite playing without their captain and winning a pitiful 17 of 67 faceoffs, built a 3-0 lead with goals by Artem Anisimov, Patrick Kane and Ryan Hartman, then staved off a Ducks comeback and beat host Anaheim 3-2 on Friday.

Toews, who sat out with an upper-body body injury he suffered at San Jose on Wednesday, missed just his 11th game since the start of the 2012 season.

"Big two points against a good team without maybe our most important player," Kane said. "Got to feel good about that one."

Without Toews, who is questionable for Saturday's game at Los Angeles, the Hawks struggled mightily in the faceoff dot, winning just 25.4 percent of their draws. Some of the stats were downright scary with Anisimov going 5-for-22, Marcus Kruger 5-for-16 and Vinnie Hinostroza 3-for-15.

Turned out not to make a big difference, though, because the Hawks took full advantage of their scoring chances and stood strong in front of Corey Crawford, who made 34 saves.

"There were so many little scrambles where it felt like there were 20 sticks swinging away at it in front of the net," Crawford said. "Our guys kept coming up with those."

Anisimov got the Hawks on the board at 11:31 of the first period when he poked the puck in while it was laying between John Gibson's legs. Give Brent Seabrook full marks for starting this play as the veteran D-man found Kane with a 100-foot stretch pass, setting up a 2-on-2. Kane worked a give-and-go with Anisimov, then whistled a shot at Gibson, who made the initial save, only to lose the battle when Anisimov scored his ninth goal of the season.

"(Seabrook's pass was) almost like a quarterback hitting the receiver down the field," Kane said. "I was kind of going outside and in … I kind of turned, was looking at my stick and the puck hit my stick. It was a great pass."

Kane's goal, his seventh, came at 6:47 of the second on a one-timer that found its way between Gibson's glove hand and his body.

Hartman's goal came nine minutes after Kane's and it was his fifth of the season.

"I thought he had an excellent game, not just the goal," Joel Quenneville said. "He gives us a little abrasiveness and net presence and some presence in the puck areas. He's got a little Shawzie (Andrew Shaw) in him."

Nick Ritchie scored 10 seconds after Hartman's tally to make it 3-1, and Jacob Silfverberg made it 3-2 at 8:51 of the third period. Anaheim had its chances down the stretch, but Crawford couldn't be beat and he recorded his 10th win of the year.

"I thought our defense played really well and Crow was solid in net," Quenneville said. "Everybody contributed today."

The Hawks are now 14-6-2 and they lead the Western Conference with 30 points. A win at Los Angeles would give them a winning record on the circus trip for the seventh time in eight seasons.

"(We'll) try and build off this," Kane said. "The intensity of these last couple games has been very high. … It's a good test for all of our players in here, especially the young guys that maybe haven't seen that level of intensity yet."

Poll results:

Earlier this week I asked my Twitter followers how many points the Blackhawks will end up with this season. The results on 292 votes:

• 115 or more: 9%

• 107-114: 25%

• 100-106: 57%

• 99 or less: 9%