Toews, Kane, Byfuglien kept quiet thanks to solid Philly 'D'

Hey, even the Blackhawks top line of Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Dustin Byfuglien can have an off night, right?

That was certainly the case in Saturday's high-flying 6-5 Hawks victory in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals where all three big guns were left off the scoresheet, other than their minus-3 rating.

"We want to keep it simple keep it down in the corners where they have to defend against us," said Toews, who leads the entire NHL with 26 playoff points. "We were just making it too easy for them to come out of their zone whether we were trying passes through the middle and stuff like that. We can make it a lot tougher on those guys for sure."

The captain and Co. can be thankful the Hawks' third line, the "checking" line of Dave Bolland, Kris Versteeg and Tomas Kopecky was also the "scoring" line in the opener. Each player had a goal and an assist with Kopecky coming through with the game-winner.

"A lot of the focus is put on (the No. 1 line) because they have been doing so well on both sides," said Troy Brouwer, who picked up the slack as well with a pair of goals in his Finals debut. "And for us, there's been a lot of talk about secondary scoring is going to win this series.

"We needed to come out and we needed to score goals and we needed to play well for our team to have an opportunity to win."

Toews said his line's failure - they put up a total of 5 shots - was one part it's own fault and one part the strong play of the Philadelphia defense.

Either way, it was a bad recipe.

"Give credit to some of their defenseman who played well," Toews said. "As a line I think all three of us know it's not as much what they did as it what we didn't do on the ice.

"I think maybe we were chasing the puck a little bit too much and weren't protecting it, we weren't supporting each other, so as a line we have to simplify things. We just go out and work hard and plays are going to happen. The less we think about things I think the more we will create."

"I think we just did a good job of denying them time and space," Flyers defenseman Chris Pronger said. "If they don't have the puck they can't make plays ... and for a lot of their shifts we played in their end, forced them to play defense and really tried to deny the puck to both Kane and Toews."

That left things up to Versteeg, Bolland and Kopecky, and the trio came through with flying colors.

"Both third lines are alike," Versteeg said. "They both make plays and do things that maybe most conventional third lines couldn't. I think that's why both teams are here today.

"We just want to go out there and check and play hard against them. You're not always going to shut 'em down (a top line) because there's so much skill. You just try and contain them and do the best you can. If you do get a goal, it's a bonus."

Toews, for one, doesn't expect a repeat performance of his line in Game 2 tonight.

"There's no time to waste this time of year, there's a big show and you want to play your best hockey every single shift," he said. "We're not going to let it make us worse or let it be a burden on our line.

"We'll go out there and we'll play better. It's simple as that."