I understand we're all Hawks fans, so I can see the natural bias towards our own guy, but really? Relying on vague, unquantifiable things like "innate quality to will a team over any obstacle?" I've never been able to buy reasoning like that. If Toews had some incredible quality like that, the Hawks would never lose playoff series. Toews would always just "will" them to victory. But they have lost plenty with him on the team - so why give him credit for an (admittedly very good) comeback and diminish Crosby for a bad series? Toews has had plenty of bad series... he had more bad ones than good ones even just this past spring.
For comparison's sake, Crosby has "led" his team back from a 2-game deficit in a playoff series as well, and that was against a much better version of the Wings than the Hawks faced last year.
Well lets look at Toews first 6 years in the league:
Rookie year: an improvement of 17 points from the previous year, miss the playoffs by 3 points and that's when the team had like an 8 game losing streak cause he was injured during that streak.
2nd year- 104 points, conference finals appearance,
3rd year- Wins a Cup
4th year- we lost half our team, go up against a 117 point powerhouse in the Canucks fall behind 3-0, he helps us get it to game 7 in OT by scoring the tying goal late in regulation.
5th year- I'll admit we lost to a team we shouldn't have but Toews probably shouldn't have played in that series with his concussion symptoms not completely settled I give him a pass.
6th year- Stanley Cup again, a 3-1 comeback and a 2-1 comeback as well as beating the defending Cup champs.
My point is the Hawks with Toews leading the way have never melted down in a playoff series where as Crosby against the Flyers and Bruins has done that. Hawks have always played with pride and resiliency even when they lost.