Toews and Kane both speak on Kyle Beach and Blackhawks scandal following loss to Leafs

The Chicago Blackhawks dropped another decision tonight, this time to the struggling Toronto Maple Leafs, and continue their slide into absolute obscurity in the NHL's standings.

But tonight, that seems to hardly matter.

That's because former Blackhawks first round pick Kyle Beach revealed on TSN this evening that he is indeed "John Doe", the man who has alleged that he was assaulted by former Blackhawks video coach Brad Aldrich. Furthermore, Beach contends that “everybody in that locker room knew about it,” and that denials from players like Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane are lies. Beach specifically singled out former Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville, now of the Florida Panthers, as having intimate knowledge of the abuse and yet he chose to do nothing. In fact, Quenneville even praised Aldrich for his work, knowing all the while what he had done to Beach.

Following Quenneville and the Panthers' win over Boston Bruins this evening, Quenneville made a quick getaway to avoid media questions. Panthers GM Bill Zito was forced to read a statement that essentially said the team would have no comment until after Quenneville met with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.

Kane and Toews weren't so fortunate though...

The Blackhawks icons were forced to sit through media questions and... well frankly, their answers are not going over well with Blackhawks fans. Toews, in particular, seems to have put his foot in his mouth quite a bit. 

Check out some of these quotes from tonight's post game press availability from Toews:

"Stan (Bowman) and Al (MacIsaac) ... they’re not directly complicit in the activities that happened. It’s not up to me to comment on whether they would like to deal with it differently or not. ... I have a lot of respect for them as people. They're good people."

"We wish we could have done something differently, myself included. My heart goes out to Kyle for what he dealt with. Wish I could have done something. It's not an excuse looking back, but the truth is a lot of us were focused on just playing hockey."

- Jonathan Toews

Um... Bowman and MacIsaac are both DIRECTLY complicit! And regardless of how you feel about them, maybe now is not the time to show your adulation for them?

As for Kane, he maintains that he had no clue about any of it, despite Beach's claims to the contrary.

"I didn't know anything at the time. Even today as Kyle came out as John Doe, that was the first time I knew it was him."

- Patrick Kane

Needless to say that neither of these two Blackhawks legends are doing themselves any favors amongst the fanbase. Dark times in Chicago, to be sure.