Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews to return to lineup

Toews sustained an injury during the Blackhawks’ March 28 game against the Edmonton Oilers. He did not play in the March 30 game versus the St. Louis Blues.

The longtime captain of the Blackhawks has been dealing with multiple injury problems all year. In the final year of his $10,500,000 AAV contract he has played 46 games and scored 14 goals and 28 points. He has taken a step back in his game following his 60-point campaign in 2019-20. Some of that is due to injury, some due to age and some of it is due to the poor lineup around him.

The Blackhawks are in the midst of a rebuilding season, and the main goal this year is to win the lottery and draft Connor Bedard. They are currently 32nd in the NHL and own a record of 24-45-6 with seven games remaining. Those seven games could be the final games of Toews’ Blackhawks career.

Toews is not sure if he will play in the NHL next year so these games will be extra meaningful to him, even as the team is not in the playoff race. He has been plagued with long COVID and chronic immune response syndrome so it would be understandable if he laces up his skates for the last time on April 13 against the Philadelphia Flyers.

This would be a fitting ending to such a storied career, playing his final game against the team he defeated in the 2010 Stanley Cup Final for his first of three Stanley Cup championships.

In his career, Toews has 371 goals and 880 points in 1,060 games, all for the Blackhawks. He won three Stanley Cups, along with a Conn Smythe Trophy, a Frank J. Selke Trophy and a Mark Messier NHL Leadership Award.