Still in recovery mode, Toews making progress

Imagine taking an entire year off from your job.

How would you perform 365 days later?

We writers would be awfully rusty. Tax accountants would scramble to learn new laws. Musicians would need weeks of practice to reach peak form.

With this in mind, it's not at all shocking to hear Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews admit it's taken a while for his confidence to return after sitting out the 2020-21 campaign due to an illness.

Toews, obviously, isn't just any professional hockey player. He's got a Ph.D. in the sport, is known as one of the league's best leaders and will one day be enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

But he's also human. He has doubts and concerns just like everyone else.

Those doubts only grow and fester when a 12-time 20-goal scorer begins the season on a 25-game goal drought.

"This year has been just a grind physically and mentally, trying to get back to ... the level I'm capable of playing at where I feel like I'm contributing to our team," Toews said Tuesday. "I'm moving in the right direction. There's just a lot of factors."

One of them is not actually playing in a game; that's "like riding a bike," Toews said. He's been playing the sport since he was a little boy, so it's not like Toews has forgotten how to pass, shoot, defend, take faceoffs and see the ice clearly.

The biggest issue has been conditioning.

When the schedule gets intense, Toews' energy wanes and it's difficult to reach his extremely high standards.

"The recovery's not quite there," Toews said. "All of a sudden, it's difficult not to become calculated going into a game, knowing that you don't quite have it. You have to make smarter plays and get off the ice early. Not that you're cutting corners, but you're just not trying to bite off more than you can chew.

"When you have that extra jump - that energy - the game just flows a little bit more, your decision making gets a little faster and that confidence just grows."

Toews admitted that as the goal-scoring drought hit 10, 15 and 20 games, the doubts grew and snowballed on him.

The skid ended when Toews tipped in a shot from the point by Seth Jones during a 2-0 victory Dec. 9 in Montreal. It was hardly a highlight reel goal. The puck just clicked off Toews' stick and popped up over the shoulder of Canadiens' goalie Jake Allen.

But no matter. Toews was finally off the schneid.

Two nights later he took advantage of a turnover, raced into the offensive zone and fired a shot past Maple Leafs goalie Petr Mrazek.

Six days later he scored again, this time during a 3-2 overtime loss to Nashville at the United Center. It was his first goal in Chicago since March 5, 2020.

That makes 3 goals (as well as 1 assist) in the past five games as the Hawks entered the Christmas break.

Now the key for Toews, who is still playing solid defense and ranks eighth in faceoff win percentage at 59.5, is to build on this stretch.

One way to do that would be to shoot more - a lot more.

Toews has taken a mere 1.77 shots on goal per game, a far cry from his career average of 4.01. Two years ago, when he finished with a career-high 35 goals, Toews averaged 4.32 shots on goal per game.

Even during this stretch of 3 goals in five games Toews took just 8 SOG.

If that changes in the coming weeks, Toews figures to help the Hawks continue on the right path - one that's seen them go 10-6-2 under interim coach Derek King.

"The confidence is coming back," Toews said. "That goes hand in hand with how I approach the game with my preparation and how I'm feeling going into games and where your head's at.

"You try to create that feeling of you're going to work for it and you're going to get the bounces before you go into games, but it definitely helps when you see the puck go in and you have a couple on the score sheet.

"It feels a lot better right now."