Blackhawks get the worst possible news concerning captain Jonathan Toews

This just in, the Chicago Blackhawks have announced that captain Jonathan Toews and Henrik Borgstrom will not practice with the team today as they have been placed in COVID-19 protocol.

Check it out:

You may recall that Toews sat out the entire 2020-21 NHL season while he dealt with an illness called Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS). Now that Toews is back in the lineup we have to presume that he has a handle on CIRS, but multiple reports from last season seemed to indicate that the symptoms of CIRS and of COVID-19 could both be exacerbated if Toews were to contract the virus. 

Today's news doesn't confirm that Toews does indeed have COVID-19, but it's certainly alarming. I'm no doctor by any means so I can only speculate as to what it would mean if Toews does test positive for the virus, but again the reporting from last season seems to indicate that it could be potentially devastating. 

Now, taking the human side out of this entirely and it's still absolutely devastating to the Blackhawks lineup. This is a team, after all, that has yet to secure a victory and is sitting dead last in the entire NHL with an abysmal 0-5-1 record in their first half dozen games. If indeed Toews is on the shelf, either short-term or long-term, it could mark the end of this team's season before it even gets off the ground. 

This is a team that went out and spent big this offseason in acquiring marquee players like Marc Andre Fleury and Seth Jones and now they're languishing in the basement of the league with the likes of the Arizona Coyotes. The Coyotes, it should be mentioned though, look to be doing everything possible to actually lose games. They're actively tanking their roster in the hopes of acquiring high end draft picks. The Blackhawks though... they're hoping to make at least one final Stanley Cup push before veterans like Toews, Fleury and superstar Patrick Kane finally hang up the skates for good. But, if things keep going the way they've been going for this team, all 23 members of the roster may as well hang up their skates today.