Blackhawks’ Jonathan Toews, Connor Murphy, Calvin de Haan return to practice

The Blackhawks enjoyed an influx of veterans at Thursday’s practice.

Forward Jonathan Toews and defensemen Connor Murphy and Calvin de Haan all participated in practice after previously missing time.

Toews returned to his normal spot centering the Hawks’ first line between Brandon Saad and Alex DeBrincat.

He’d left midway through Monday’s practice and was nowhere to be seen Tuesday; coach Jeremy Colliton said Monday he was just trying to keep the 32-year-old “fresh,” but then gave him the NHL’s new universal “unfit to participate” designation Tuesday.

With the Hawks taking a day off Wednesday, Toews ended up getting two and a half days of rest within an intense training camp.

“Really it just came down to maintenance,” Toews said Thursday. “Nothing serious. I felt pretty good out there today.”

Murphy and de Haan, meanwhile, hadn’t joined team practice since last week, with de Haan absent due to a family emergency and Murphy also declared “unfit.” Both players skated on their own separate from practice Tuesday at Fifth Third Arena, though, so their returns Thursday weren’t particularly surprising.

With 10 defensemen now in practice — Murphy and de Haan joined the existing group of Duncan Keith, Adam Boqvist, Olli Maatta, Slater Koekkoek, Lucas Carlsson, Brent Seabrook, Nicolas Beaudin and Nick Seeler — the Hawks mixed and matched their ‘D’ pairings.

“[Getting them back was] very positive,” coach Jeremy Colliton said. “All those guys are a big part of our group and we need them. So we’ll keep getting them ready the best we can; [we] still have some time to get up to speed.”

“I thought it was a good skate today, building on the last one we had, and [we’ll] just keep working.”

With Toews, Murphy and de Haan back in the fold, goaltender Corey Crawford is now the only NHL regular missing from training camp.

Crawford’s ailment, status and timetable remain extremely unclear, but Hawks general manager Stan Bowman did say Tuesday that he remains “hopeful” Crawford will join the team in time to travel to Edmonton on Sunday. Colliton said Thursday he had no update.

Taxi squad forward John Quenneville — also out since last week — skated with Murphy and assistant coach Marc Crawford before practice, but didn’t participate.