Chicago Blackhawks about to miss playoffs again despite career years from Toews and Kane

After waiting 20 minutes for Jonathan Toews to emerge from behind the sliding doors of the Chicago Blackhawks' dressing room Monday morning, a throng of media members encircled the captain's locker stall.

Toews strolled out wearing a T-shirt, shorts, ball cap - and sporting a full beard.

Nobody asked if the facial hair was a subliminal message, but it would take a major miracle for Toews to have to shelve his shaving kit when the postseason begins next week.

In some ways, it's not surprising that the inconsistent Hawks likely will sit home for a second straight season.

But if you told Toews and Patrick Kane in October that they were about to embark on career seasons - and that Alex DeBrincat would score 40 goals AND that Erik Gustafsson would score nearly 20 - they no doubt would have figured the team was headed back to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

"I guess there's some things you (need) to identify that you can do that can make our team better," Toews said before the Hawks hosted Winnipeg on Monday. "Hockey's a very team-oriented game - more so than other team sports maybe - (where) you can have a superstar and you still need a lot of different pieces to go out there and make your team successful."

That's true of the Hawks, of course, but also for a team like the Edmonton Oilers, who trot out Connor McDavid (40G, 74A) and Leon Draisaitl (47G, 54A) every night, yet they also are nowhere near a playoff spot. Same with the Florida Panthers, who have Aleksander Barkov (34G, 57A) and Jonathan Huberdeau (27G, 61A).

In the Hawks' case - in addition to a woefully undermanned defense corps - they have relied too much on Toews, Kane and DeBrincat all season. There are far too many forwards who are almost no threat to score.

Chief among them are David Kampf (4 goals in 62 games), Marcus Kruger (4 in 71), Chris Kunitz (4 in 53), John Hayden (3 in 50), Dylan Sikura (none in 32) and Dominik Kahun (1 in his last 22).

That's half of the lineup and doesn't include the disappointing Artem Anisimov (14 goals) or the wildly inconsistent Brendan Perlini.

Because of this, coach Jeremy Colliton has been forced to overplay Kane and Toews, who rank third and 13th among forwards in average time on ice.

Teams that are successful over the long haul can consistently play their fourth-line guys for 9-12 minutes a night. That rarely happens with the Hawks.

"It's something obviously we're aware of," Colliton said. "We just have felt that throughout the second half that if we were going to get back in it, we needed to lean on the top guys. For the most part, they've come through for us, and that's why we've been in the playoff race here. …

"Long term, we'd like to use more of the lineup. So it's something we'll work towards here."

And something general manager Stan Bowman must fix in the off-season. He needs to bring in a few players who can be consistent threats up and down the lineup.

The Jets are a perfect example. Here's a team led by plenty of star power, but also one that sports lesser-known names such as Kevin Hayes (18 goals), Bryan Little (15), Mathieu Perreault (15), Brandon Tanev (14), Adam Lowry (12) and Andrew Copp (11).

That's six middle-of-the-road forwards who can burn an opponent on any given night. Other than Perlini and Drake Caggiula, the Hawks have none of that.

And it's a big reason there will be no playoff hockey - or playoff beards - in Chicago this April.