Jonathan Toews opened up Tuesday about how he has felt over the last two months.
Jeffrey T. Barnes/AP
Two months to the day since his last Blackhawks game, Jonathan Toews skated with the full team — for the first time since stepping away — during morning skate Tuesday.
The captain won’t play Tuesday against the Stars but looked close to his usual self on the ice, joking with teammates and skating unimpeded. Behind the scenes, however, he hasn’t felt anything like his usual self over the past few months.
“When day after day you’re just pushing through pain, it’s like, to what end?” Toews said. “I’m at that point where it feels like more damage is being done than is a good thing.”
The vagueness of his conditions — chronic immune response syndrome and long COVID — makes it difficult to explain how or why he’s struggling. But he’s certainly struggling nonetheless.
“You can’t really explain because people won’t understand,” he said. “It’s not like a knee injury or shoulder injury where you lay under an MRI and your proof is right there. It has been one of those complicated things. Even for me, it’s been really challenging at times to figure out what’s going on.”
After a couple years of steady improvement since deciding to sit out the entire 2021 season, his health took a turn for the worse in January, a few weeks before he was left with no choice but to shut himself down again.
“It just got to the point where I couldn’t move on the ice and didn’t even want to put on my skates or roll out of bed to come to the rink,” he said. “So it was pretty rough.”
And up until a few weeks ago, the 34-year-old forward was strongly considering sitting out the rest of this season, too, to let himself rest more. After all, he had already taken the step of separating himself from the team after the All-Star break ended in February.
But he has decided to push to return for at least a few games at the end of this season. The Hawks will have eight games left — four at home — after hosting the Stars on Tuesday, and Toews’ future — with his contract expiring in July, plus so many health issues to sort out — is murky beyond that point.
“Regardless of what happens in the future this summer, it’s definitely on my mind that this could be my last few weeks here in Chicago as a Blackhawk,” he said.
“So that’s definitely very important for me to just go out there, enjoy the game, soak it in and just really appreciate everything I’ve been able to be a part of here in Chicago — and show my appreciation to the fans, as well.”
This story will be updated.
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