The puck touches Maatta's stick after he pushes it, and before it reaches Caggiula. So my understanding is it's not a hand pass to a teammate because the stick touch ends the hand pass and only then does it go on to the other player. But to my knowledge this isn't clearly defined in the rulebook, like a number of other things, so I'm not sure and I'm happy to be shown otherwise.
But it's really besides the point anyway. All that matters for the purposes of assessing Toews' response is whether or not he's telling the truth about what the ref told him. If he is, then I don't have a problem with it.
Does it touch the stick? The best I can come up with is a maybe. Even in super slo mo, it's still not even clear if it even grazed the stick. Which is beside the point. To nullify a hand pass, the player handling the puck must do more than graze the puck. They must direct the puck with their stick. It's the same thing, and even a case in our casebook, when a player bats the near the goal and puck glances off his stick into the net. It's not a good goal, because it was the action of batting the puck that caused the puck to enter the net. In this case, Maatta did not direct the puck with his stick, and therefore did not nullify a hand pass.
As for what the refs supposedly told Toews, I wasn't there, but I am curious why they thought they made a mistake. I tried looking for the reactions of the other officials, and really could only see the near linesman. I wonder if the back ref or far linesman saw the hand pass and blew it dead, but no one heard it because the crowd was load with Caggiula's rush. I only know that if they thought they made a mistake, it actually ended up being the correct call.