from Mark Lazerus of The Athletic,

No, for the record, Jonathan Toews doesn’t plan to retreat into a completely dark room for four days to make a decision on his future in the NHL.

“No, no, I don’t think I’ll have to get that extreme,” he said with a smirk.

Instead, when the Blackhawks’ season ends next week and he’s done cleaning out his locker and going through his exit interviews and bro-hugging his teammates, Toews will go about things the traditional way. He’ll talk to his girlfriend. To his family. To his closest friends. To the people “who know me better than anybody.”

But mostly, he’ll talk to himself. He’ll look within — to see how badly he wants to continue his career, how important hockey still is to him, how willing he is to continue fighting through the fatigue and pain and emotional struggle that come with his dual diagnoses of Long COVID and Chronic Immune Response Syndrome. Because if the answer to any of those questions is anything less than 100 percent, then the answer is obvious.

Because the NHL is all or nothing. You can’t play in this league half-hearted.

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