Blackhawks captain hints at retirement as physical toll on body mounts

Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews was back on the ice for practice on Tuesday for the first time in two months, and he seemed to hint that his playing days could be winding down. 

Toews has been sidelined due to a resurgence of symptoms from chronic immune response syndrome and long COVID that have kept him sidelined over the past two years.

The resurgence in his symptoms took him out of the lineup in January and prevented him from being traded at the deadline.

Toews is a pending unrestricted free agent after this season, and with the Blackhawks in a full-scale rebuild, it seems unlikely he will be back, especially after the team traded Patrick Kane.

He acknowledged on Tuesday that he realizes he might be in his final weeks with the team, but even more than no longer being a Blackhawk his playing days in general seem to be in jeopardy.

“I’m committed to get back to a place where...[I have the] energy to not only go out there and play the game at the level I know that I can, but also have the energy left over to enjoy life and enjoy my time with my teammates, whether it’s going to dinners or just little things like that,” said Toews on Tuesday, via the Chicago Sun Times. “All that stuff has been nonexistent. [I] really just go home, lay there, try to recover and get ready for the next day. That’s all it has really been. So we’ll see how things play out.”

That does not sound like a player fully committed to anything beyond this season.