Selke would be great hardware to add to Toews collection
His commitment is the essence of hockey purity.
In a sport that rewards with titles those who live for team above all else, Jonathan Toews is everything that's right about the game.
His complete selflessness and unbowed willingness to sacrifice personal gain for the greater good is what makes him so perfect for his role.
He is captain of the Stanley Cup champions.
There are others like him, but even in a league as superior as the NHL, rare is the superstar who cares more about goals-against than his place among the scoring leaders.
This is a black-and-white issue for Captain Serious: You are either a team-first guy or you're not. There is no in-between.
He is the type that when handed the Conn Smythe by Gary Bettman, he treats it like Anthrax.
He wants the other trophy in the building, because Toews was born to skate with the Stanley Cup, and you know he will play this year with thoughts only of dancing with it again.
With half a new roster and a hangover to boot, the Hawks face a daunting task in trying to repeat.
Some have already admitted they'll have a tough time getting it going again after a short summer and extended party, and it's human nature to struggle in what will feel like meaningless regular season games after playing in and winning the most important games of all.
Rest assured, however, that Toews will show up with his eye on the big prize again.
But there may be other prizes as well. After a year in which he was the best player on the gold-medal winning Canadian team and the Stanley Cup winning team, you wonder if the postseason awards will begin to pile up for Toews.
And if forced to wager, the pick would be the Selke, for top defensive forward.
Toews finished fourth in Selke voting last season, behind Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk who has won the last three Vancouver's Ryan Kesler and Pittsburgh's Jordan Staal.
No one can argue against Datsyuk, who, like Toews, could have better offensive numbers if he thought less about defense.
But Toews is in the conversation, finishing seventh among forwards in take-aways last season, while Datsyuk was first.
But of those in the top 7, Toews had the best plus minus (+22), the fewest giveaways (24, compared to 73 for Datsyuk), the most faceoffs won (801, sixth in the NHL), the best faceoff win percentage (57.3, seventh in the NHL), and the highest percentage of team faceoffs taken (33.7, sixth in the NHL).
During the postseason, while leading the Hawks in points and finishing second in all playoff scoring, he was also first in the league in take-aways (32), first in faceoffs won (277), first in faceoffs taken (460), and first in faceoff win percentage (60.2) among the top 15 in total faceoffs taken.
By any criteria, be it quality of teammate, puck possession, puck support, new stats or old, Toews is destined to be in the Selke discussion from this point forward.
What's most striking about him is how profoundly responsible he is at all times, often forsaking the chance to catch the play, choosing instead to make certain there's enough bodies back to defend his own goal.
It's a comforting feeling knowing your best player and hardest worker is also thinking defense while still putting up strong offensive numbers.
The rest of the league saw it in the Olympics, and the rest of the league saw it in a long postseason run.
So if Toews doesn't make it to the awards show as a Selke finalist next summer, it'll be a shock, though it wouldn't be a shock if in the near future he were also getting consideration for the Hart and Lady Byng trophies.
Of course, Toews won't care about any of that, and when he furls his brow and gets that look on his face, some will mock Captain Serious for being unable to smile and enjoy the attention.
But he saves those smiles for a chance to dance, and he waits for the enjoyment of June.
That's the month on the calendar that matters most to a man who measures his success in rings and nothing else.