Blackhawks’ intense Jonathan Toews presents a challenge for Kings

It is a tale of two former Conn Smythe winners, and center Colin Fraser had a front seat for both performances.

In one corner, Kings goalie Jonathan Quick, the most valuable player of last season’s playoffs. Then there’s the winner from three years ago, center Jonathan Toews, Chicago’s captain.

Fraser won the Stanley Cup with Chicago in 2010 and the Kings in 2012.

The Kings like to talk about how Quick despises giving up goals even in a run-of-the-mill practice. It doesn’t matter if he had almost no chance on the play. But Toews takes intensity to another level, past hockey, and will hurl a paddle if he loses in table tennis, Fraser reports.

So it will be Quick versus Toews in the Western Conference finals, starting with Game 1 between the Kings and the Blackhawks on Saturday at the United Center.

May the best Jonathan win.

One of the subplots of the Chicago-Detroit series was how the Red Wings not only got under the skin of Toews but also took up residence. Captain Serious became Captain Unsettled before pulling it together in the latter stages of the series.

“Playing with Taser — sorry, Jonathan Toews — he’s a really competitive guy,” Fraser said. “He was just getting frustrated. How do you frustrate him?

“You shut him down, and Detroit was doing a good job of shutting him and [Patrick] Kane down. He wants to score goals and help his team to win. The less we can do that and hopefully that the more frustrated he can get. Get him off his game. Within the rules.”

The man assigned to spend quality time against Toews probably will be Kings center Anze Kopitar. He didn’t play in the season opener against Chicago, still dealing with a knee injury, but saw plenty of Toews in the teams’ other two meetings.

In the three games against the Kings, Toews had three goals and six points and was a plus-four.

“I’m sure it’s going to be plenty of Toews on the other side,” Kopitar said. “You’ve got to do a job on him. You want to be as physical as you can. You’ve got to limit his time and space on the ice. He was getting a little bit frustrated in the last series in Detroit. They got him off his game.

“But you can’t take anything for granted because he’s done it before and we’ve done if before. So it should be a good matchup.”

The Kings are fresh from dealing with the formidable challenge of Sharks center Joe Thornton in an exhausting seven-game series. Toews presents a different dynamic for the Kings.

“Thornton, I think, physically outmatched the majority of our team,” Kings captain Dustin Brown said. “He’s 6-4. With Toews, it’s more about a compete level. We have to match that, make it really hard on him through the neutral zone.

“He gets that speed through the neutral zone and that’s where he makes his really good plays. He’s the heart and soul of that team.”

Brown compared Toews to Zach Parise of the Minnesota Wild. Brown and Parise played for Team USA against Toews in the gold-medal game at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, won by Canada.

“There’s a very high skill level, but their ‘compete’ might be higher than their skill and that doesn’t happen very often with those high-end guys,” Brown said. “That’s the challenge, right?”

Regehr extension

Defenseman Robyn Regehr, who has given the Kings the physical presence and stability they were searching for this season, has signed a two-year contract extension. He would have become an unrestricted free agent on July 6.

The deal, announced Thursday afternoon, is worth $6 million, according to a person familiar with the agreement who was not authorized to comment.

Regehr was acquired April 1, just before the trade deadline, in an attempt to fill the void created by the season-long absence of defenseman Willie Mitchell because of knee problems. Regehr, who played for Kings Coach Darryl Sutter in Calgary, was a quick fit in Los Angeles and helped anchor the penalty-killing unit, meshing well with defenseman Drew Doughty.

The Kings gave up second-round draft picks in 2014 and 2015 to acquire Regehr from the Buffalo Sabres.

lisa.dillman@latimes.com

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