Jonathan Toews Makes NHL Return Official With New One-Year Deal

With all the speculation surrounding where Jonathan Toews would end up after announcing his comeback, several teams were in the mix for the three-time Stanley Cup Champion.

Well it was announced on Friday that Toews has decided on where he is going to play and he feels like home is the best place to get back on track.

Toews signed a one-year deal with the Winnipeg Jets; the contract was announced by NHL Insider Pierre LeBrun on X.

Colorado, Winnipeg, Tampa Bay and Toronto were all frontrunners for the former Blackhawks captain, and he was expected to make his decision before the NHL Draft; a promise he upheld.

Toews, 37, has 883 points in 1,067 career games; all with the Chicago Blackhawks.

While the agreement can't become official until July 1 when free agency officially kicks off, it seems that Toews felt being close to home was best not only for him physically, but mentally as well.

Toews is making his comeback after a two-year hiatus after dealing with symptoms of Long-COVID as well as Chronic Immune Response Syndrome; a condition that is caused due to certain toxins and can cause a litany of terrible symptoms including muscle pain, fatigue, joint pain, blurred vision and brain fog.

He sought alternative treatment in India, and documented his health pilgrimage on his social media this year and clearly responded well to the program allowing him to make his comeback.

With Toews choosing Winnipeg, that leaves those other three teams out of luck but none more so than the Toronto Maple Leafs.

It seems that every day that passes, the team loses out.

With Toews, they lose out on a potential 3C with incredible credentials, and may have helped them land Patrick Kane in free agency too. We already saw Brock Nelson and Matt Duchene re-up with their respective teams, and Chris Kreider was traded to Anaheim earlier this month.

They are losing players quickly and with silence from the front office in every regard, not just free agency; things are looking a bit dire.

It's not time to panic yet and there's still the NHL Draft to get trades done, and free agency is expected to pick up so there's still some time left but another week or two with nothing to show for it is going to have Brad Treliving answering a lot of pressing questions.