Longtime Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews, who has not played an NHL game since April 2023, said he is “100% committed” to returning to the league for the 2025-26 season, Pierre LeBrun reports. Toews informed agent Pat Brisson that he is set on making a comeback, and Brisson said he will take calls from NHL teams ahead of the free agency period, which begins July 1.
An extended battle with COVID-19 and chronic inflammatory response syndrome derailed Toews’ career, and he announced nearly two years ago that he planned to sit out to focus on his health. Toews emphasized at the time that he was not retiring from the NHL but rather sitting out the 2023-24 season. That absence extended into the most recent campaign.
Toews missed the entire pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season and announced at the end of the year that he received a CIRS diagnosis. He later revealed that an antibody test showed he also had COVID-19 during that season-long absence. While Toews returned to the ice with the Blackhawks the following year, he missed extensive time with long COVID symptoms and saw his contract expire at the end of the 2022-23 season.
LeBrun reports that Toews spent the last several months working towards an NHL return. It is not unprecedented for a player to return from a multi-year absence, and Gabriel Landeskog did just that when he returned to the Colorado Avalanche during this season’s Stanley Cup Playoffs after a three-year stint on the shelf due to knee surgery.
Toews, a three-time Stanley Cup winner, built a storied career exclusively with the Blackhawks. Chicago picked him No. 3 overall in the 2006 NHL Draft, and the 37-year-old longtime captain played 15 seasons with the franchise prior to his time away from the league.
The first of Toews’ three Stanley Cup victories snapped a 47-year drought for the Blackhawks. He won the Conn Smythe Trophy during that postseason run as the MVP of the 2010 playoffs. Toews is also a Selke Trophy winner and six-time NHL All-Star. Internationally, he won gold at the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics with Team Canada.
