Brutal blow to Jonathan Toews amid long-awaited NHL return

The Winnipeg Jets not only lost their preseason game to the Minnesota Wild but, might have the same time, lost a key player days before the opening night of the 2025-26.

In the 3-2 loss at the hands of the Wild, the Jets have to come to the hard reality that veteran forward Jonathan Toews, who is attempting a comeback into the NHL after two years of absence, tweaked something and miss the last 30 minutes of the contest. Toews had just over 10 minutes of ice time before leaving with the undisclosed injury in the second period.

Not much was revealed about Toews’ injury after the game when head coach Scott Arniel met with media.

“We’ll just wait until we get home and get it looked at and go from there.”

The video below shows Toews' last shift in the second frame, before he left the contest and did not return.

The news was not much better when Arniel stated that, after their day off on Wednesday, Toews would be back in Winnipeg and would be evaluated there. He also added about the severity of the injury:

"Yeah, I don't know really yet."

This is tough news to swallow until fans know more for Toews, a Winnipeg native, who signed a one-year, $2 million contract with the Jets this off-season after being away from the game for two seasons due to health issues.

Toews, whose recovery started with a trip to India where he underwent “an Ayurvedic detox called a Panchakarma”, is making a comeback to the game he loves, but his body might be telling not so fast… In 2022-23, he played out the last of an eight-year, $84 million contract he signed with the Blackhawks in 2014 that carried an AAV of $10.5 million, after missing the 2020-21 bubble season while recovering from COVID-19 and chronic immune response syndrome. He was then informed by general manager Kyle Davidson prior to the team’s final game of the season that he would not be re-signed. In August of 2023, Toews announced that he was stepping away from hockey “to give myself the time and space to fully heal and enjoy life to the fullest once again.”

The 37-year-old is well aware of the challenges ahead of him as he returns to NHL ice after two years off it, and you have to imagine that the challenges will be even harder he is already has to deal with an injury.

Once the Jets are back home and Toews gets fully evaluated, we will know more on how this tweak hinders his return to NHL ice.