Asked what he was trying to do on the play, Toews replied, "Exactly what happened. Let's leave it at that."
Chicago outshot Florida 21-7 in the first period and took a 2-0 lead. Hayden made it 1-0 at 9:25 after Tommy Wingels' attempted wraparound went off the end of his stick and toward the front of the net. Florida center Derek MacKenzie missed a chance to swipe the puck before Hayden one-timed it over Luongo's left shoulder.
Saad made it 2-0 at 14:35 when he redirected Toews' pass from the corner for his eighth goal of the season but his second in 16 games. It was one of seven shots for Saad in the first period, the most for a Blackhawks player in a period since 2008.
"Obviously seven in a period, you're around the net," Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "You'd hope that one of them might have gone in earlier than that. But you look at the chances he's had in the last three or four games, to be snakebit like that, he was doing everything he can to break loose and hopefully that's a good sign."
McCann made it 2-1 at 1:06 of the second period with a wrist shot from the top of the circle. Kane made it 3-1 at 7:03 with a wrist shot from the right circle that went through a screen and beat Luongo on the short side.
"You've got to hand it to them, they were ready to play and we weren't," Panthers coach Bob Boughner said. "We did a good job in the second but it was just too late. The backbreaker was the third goal."
Florida defeated Chicago at BB&T Center 4-0 in 2015-16 and 7-0 last season.
"Night and day," Quenneville said. "It was a good start. We did a lot of good things tonight. We checked well. We handled the puck well, did some good things with it."
