Jonathan Toews, 3-time Stanley Cup champion with Blackhawks, retires after 16 NHL seasons

Jonathan Toews, who helped lead the Chicago Blackhawks to three Stanley Cup titles in six years, announced on Friday that he is retiring from the NHL after 16 seasons, ending his career with a resume that will almost certainly see him enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

"It's a privilege to be standing up here to say goodbye to the game of hockey and the NHL," Toews said after playing the past season with his hometown Winnipeg Jets.

The 38-year-old center played 15 of his 16 seasons in Chicago. The end of his time with the Blackhawks was plagued with health problems. He missed the entire 2020-21 season due to symptoms of long COVID-19 and chronic immune response syndrome, and after playing his last game for the Blackhawks in April 2023, he missed two more seasons with health problems before signing with the Jets.

"I look back on my time in Chicago and it all kind of went by in a blink of an eye, but I realize how special that time was and how lucky I was," he said. "It was definitely incredible, and a dream come true, and you realize how lucky you have to be in life for things to go the way they did."

He finishes his career among Blackhawks career leaders in multiple categories, including games played (1,067, 5th), goals (372, 6th), assists (511, 8th), points (883, 6th) game-winning goals (69, 3rd), power play goals (93, 7th), short-handed goals (17, 8th), hat tricks (6, 8th), and offensive point shares (75.7, 4th).

In addition to his three Stanley Cup championships (2010, 2013, 2015), Toews is a six-time All Star, a two-time Olympic gold medalist (2010 and 2014), a World Championship gold medalist (2007), and in 2017 was named one of the NHL's 100 greatest all-time players. He was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy in 2010 as the league's playoff MVP, won the Frank Selke Trophy in 2013 as the best defensive forward in the NHL, and was awarded the Mark Messier Leadership Award in 2015.

"Getting drafted, pulling on the sweater, Original Six franchise in Chicago, everyone that I played with in the [2007] World Championship before I signed my first contract were all saying the same thing, that Chicago was an amazing not only sports city, but hockey city, and that once we had a competitive team again that things would really take off, and it would be an amazing place to play," "Who knew that we'd lift not only one but three Stanley Cups?"

Nicknamed "Captain Serious," Toews and fellow rookie Patrick Kane helped quickly revive the Blackhawks franchise when they debuted together in the 2007-08 season.

The two youngsters instantly became the faces of the franchise, and the Blackhawks had their first winning season since 2001-02 with Toews and Kane in their rookie season, ended a five-year playoff drought in their second season together after Toews was named the youngest captain in franchise history at 20 years and 79 days old, and ended the team's 49-year Stanley Cup drought in their third season together.

They would go on to win a total of three Stanley Cup titles in six years, in 2010, 2013, and 2015.

"We were kind of the odd couple for a lot of those years, especially when we were rooming together," Toews said of his longtime teammate, Kane. "Going through the journey with a  young player like himself definitely took the pressure off me, but at the same time a guy like that is going to push to get better, and his commitment to the game, and the career he's had, I get to look back and be thankful I got to play with a player like him."

Looking back on his career, Toews said it still doesn't make sense to him that he was named a team captain at only 20 years old, "But I had a tremendous group of players around me, and [head coach Joel Quenneville] was the man for the job with the young team that we had and the trajectory we were on, so it was an honor to play for him all those years."

In a statement posted on social media, Blackhawks Chairman and CEO Danny Wirtz called Toews "the heartbeat of the Blackhawks."

"He led by example, carrying the responsibility of captain with humility, integrity, and determination. He was as serious a competitor as any player this city has ever cheered for," Wirtz said. "He was never, ever willing to be outworked and earned the respect of teammates, opponents, coaches and fans through the way he approached the game."

Toews finished his NHL career with 912 points (383 goals and 529 assists) in 1,149 regular-season games. In another 137 playoff games, he had 199 points (45 goals and 74 assists), including 11 game-winning goals in the postseason.