Adam Proteau discusses Jonathan Toews' health journey, the PWHL's innovative new rules and Oilers D-man Darnell Nurse's feelings about Leafs enforcer Ryan Reaves' hit on him.
Darnell Nurse is helped off the ice after Ryan Reaves hit him on Nov. 16.Welcome back to Screen Shots, a regular THN.com file in which we tackle a few NHL and hockey issues and discuss them in short paragraphs. Simple enough, no? Let’s get to it:
It was refreshing to see former Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews resurfacing after taking time off to deal with health issues connected to long COVID and chronic immune response syndrome.
The 36-year-old Toews – one of the most decorated and accomplished players of his generation and a potential Hockey Hall of Famer – missed the 2020-21 season due to health problems. But he did return to the Hawks for two seasons before announcing he was taking a break as of April 2023.
There's no doubt Toews would be welcomed back to the game if he wanted to play again. But the most important thing in his Instagram post was that he was “trending” in a positive way. Even if Toews never plays another NHL game, his fans, family and friends all should be happy he’s making headway in dealing with his health woes.
Toews gave the NHL everything he had for 15 seasons, winning three Stanley Cups, a Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP and a Frank Selke Trophy as the league’s top defensive forward. He also brought home two Olympic gold medals, one World Championship gold and one gold medal at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.
That’s an incredible career, and if Toews has given all he could, it’s more than enough, and he deserves to be satisfied and healthy for the rest of his days. So our continued best wishes go out to Toews. Whatever works to help you is alright with us.
It was intriguing to see the PWHL come out with a number of rule changes for this season. Arguably the biggest change will be the “No Escape Rule,” which “requires players on a team that take a penalty, which leads to penalty time on the clock, to remain on the ice until after the faceoff that resumes action.”
It's similar to teams that ice the puck having to keep their players on the ice for the next faceoff. And as the PWHL noted, if a defender takes a penalty, there could be three forwards and one defender on the ice to start the penalty kill.
We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: governing a pro sports league is like tending to a garden – you have to act proactively to clear out weeds. If you don’t do that, things get out of control and unseemly. And that’s why these new changes are so important.
The PWHL is doing its best to be as entertaining and as safe for players as possible. It’s a great thing to see the league be willing to adapt, evolve and innovate.
Finally, Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse didn't hold back on the Ryan Reaves hit that knocked him out of action for five to 10 days and led to a five-game suspension for Reaves.
Nurse said he wasn't sure if he was aware enough and that there's an onus on the puck carrier to be aware of where everyone is. But that didn't stop him from talking about Reaves.
"You know, you can argue about the intent, but there are certain guys in the league that each shift they go out there, they're trying to go inflict pain,” Nurse said Thursday. "And, yeah, I think it's pretty obvious what's going on there."
The Maple Leafs' media relations team reportedly disallowed Reaves from speaking about the hit, so we probably won’t get a public back-and-forth exchange between Reaves and Nurse. Although that didn't stop Reaves' brother, Jordan, from replying to a social media post.
"You can tell that look looking at your skates?" Jordan Reaves wrote.
Nurse said Reaves apologized to him during the game, but he thought it didn’t make much difference.
There’s genuine bad blood there, and Nurse wasn’t in a forgiving mood. But we’ll be watching closely to see what happens when the Oilers square off against Toronto in Edmonton on Feb. 1. If Nurse still has bad feelings toward Reaves, there could be a major clash between the two veterans.
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