NEWSLETTER
The future of Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews is going to be the storyline of the Blackhawks’ season.
The two future Hall of Famers, who jumped into the league together, won three Stanley Cups together, and have signed identical contracts throughout their careers, are now in the final year of their respective deals. They’ve shared success, growth, Chevy commercials — heck, they even share an agent.
19 and 88 have been indelibly linked from the time Kane was drafted first overall in 2007.
However, the Blackhawks franchise is closer now to where it was when the two started their careers than the heights it achieved largely thanks to their play. And with the team moving on from younger players who were thought to be central building blocks for the next generation, the questions have already started about their futures.
Yeah, it got a little awkward at times. Both veterans spoke with the media for about 15 minutes, and — with the exception of a question about their respective summers off the ice/away from hockey — the questions were almost totally about the losses of key players and their personal futures.
Neither of them wanted to speak about the finality this year presents, at least on paper. They artfully dodged questions about the rumors; one reporter assumed Kane spends more time on line and might see the rumors more frequently than Toews and the captain chuckled and asked if he honestly believed that, which garnered a laugh from the media.
But they have both only worn one logo in their careers. And that means something to both of them.
“There [are] very few players who end up playing their whole career with one team, right?” Kane said on Thursday in his first comments to the media since the summer trades. “Guys like Crosby and Malkin and Ovechkin, they’ll probably finish careers with the one team. But you see a lot of players now, they’re moving all over the place. So, like I said before, it’s not something I’ve thought of or anything I’m thinking about right now.”
Even though they have been tied together throughout their careers, Toews and Kane are at different places now. Kane is coming off a season in which he battled through injuries and still put up 92 points. Toews did not skate in the pandemic-shortened 2021 season and struggled to get going last year offensively.
Their reactions to this summer’s trades, specifically of Alex DeBrincat and Kirby Dach were very similar. Kane used the words “disappointing” and “crushing.” Toews said “no doubt there’s a little shock. A little anger.” The captain went as far as to say Dach didn’t get a fair shake in Chicago — something many have written and tweeted but hearing it from Toews was a bit of a surprise.
But they’re both excited about playing for a coach who has been through the battles and has as much a veteran presence behind the bench — or on the ice, as we saw with Luke Richardson skating laps with the players on the first day of training camp — as a fresh voice calling the shots.
Richardson and general manager Kyle Davidson spoke at length about the value they both see in the leadership and experience of the two champions. And, on Thursday, Kane and Toews spoke about their early impressions of their new head coach who played more than 1,400 regular season games in the NHL.
Both Kane and Toews are accepting their leadership roles this year. And working — once again — to welcome a crew of new faces into the room.
“I think even you’d imagine what some young guys that come in here probably grew up watching Patrick Kane and idolize a guy like him, and to see how they interact with him and also how a guy like him is able to recognize the effect he has on a young guy and really take advantage of that in a positive way is a big thing,” Toews said. “But at the same time, we have other guys that come into this locker room that you’ve played against for years and there’s always kind of a process of getting to know each other and there’s always that respect factor too. It’s fun to see guys like Jack Johnson, you go down the list. A guy like Jack who just won the Stanley Cup, it’s fun to get to know him a little bit more personally as a teammate and just see how those guys fit into your locker room.”
Kane noted that he’s taken young players like Ryan Hartman, Nick Schmaltz, DeBrincat and Dylan Strome under his wing in the past. And he looks forward to nurturing another set of young players this season — as long as he’s in Chicago.
The reality for both of these franchise pillars is that they’re swimming in uncharted waters right now. They’ve watched as guys they’ve played against for years like Ryan Getzlaf, Zdeno Chara and PK Subban decided to call it a career. Of those three, only Getzlaf was able to complete his career in one sweater. And the notion that one or both of these players could wear another jersey wasn’t really something either wanted to discuss as they started a new season.
They will each have young players in that dressing room in the coming days and months that idolized them growing up. And they’re learning new systems again. With a new general manager who is placing the long term growth of the organization ahead of this year’s on-ice product, the internal conflict each has tried to avoid is going to be there.
And people are going to write and talk about them as “trade chips” more than legends this season. That feels like an over-simplification of their statuses with the organization, but we’ve been reminded far too often that professional sports are a business first and foremost.
This is going to be a long year for Blackhawks fans, and the decisions coming for the front office and their two best players aren’t going to come easily. For now, Kane and Toews are buying into what Richardson and Davidson are selling. They’re still Blackhawks — and, to many, they always will be.
