What happened to Jonathan Toews in 2-year absence before Jets contract?
Jonathan Toews is officially back in the NHL after a multi-year hiatus. The three-time Stanley Cup champion and former Chicago Blackhawks captain reportedly signed a one-year deal with his hometown Winnipeg Jets and will be back on the ice in 2025-26.
It's been a long road for Toews, who announced he was stepping away from hockey for health reasons in August 2023, but refused to call it a retirement.
Now at 37 years old and, hopefully, back to full strength the former Selke-winner is ready to revive his career. If you haven't been following along, here's what Toews has been up to since he last took the ice.
What happened to Jonathan Toews?
Toews' struggles really began years before his hiatus.
The center missed the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season while dealing with chronic inflammatory response syndrome. He planned to return for the 2021-22 season, but that return was complicated by lingering effects of long COVID and CIRS.
The 2021-22 health problems stretched into 2022-23, a season in which he played just 53 games and scored a career-low 31 points as the Blackhawks continued to crater in the standings. Toews' contract expired at the end of the season, along with Patrick Kane's, and the Blackhawks declined to re-sign their captain and accept it was time to rebuild.
That led to Toews taking a break from hockey, though he always made clear his intentions to return.
What did Toews do on his hiatus?
A week or so after announcing he was stepping away, Toews began his hiatus by... playing hockey.
He participated in Marian Hossa's farewell exhibition fundraiser in Trenčín, Slovakia and then began his adventures off the ice. He took up surfing, attended Burning Man and then went on a healing journey to India in December 2024.
After his trip, Toews told GQ's Matthew Roberson his health issues began much earlier than was previously known:
"If I do look back on my career, I always kind of had digestive issues, immune system issues—nothing seriously chronic or diagnosed when I was young—but definitely in my teenage years I was always battling something.
"Early in my career, it was probably my second season in the NHL, I kept getting sick, I couldn't sleep at night, all these things where it just finally got to the point where I was like, 'All right.' I always thought, in my mind, that everyone else just felt that way and that was just normal, but then it got so bad that I barely made it through the playoffs that year."
Notably, the GQ conversation ended with Toews declaring he was still itching to get back on the ice.
In March 2025, Toews took those comments a step further by declaring his intention to return to the NHL.
"I'm not satisfied the way things ended in Chicago," Toews told Mark Lazerus of The Athletic. "It's not about proving anything. It's just that there's something left in the tank, and I want to explore that. I want to go have fun, have a blast, play with passion.
'I want to be able to step away from the game having said that I've given it my all.'
Now he's got his chance.
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