Toews taking demotion in stride Jets’ forward moves from second centre to fourth-line winger By: Mike McIntyre Posted: 5:47 PM CST Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025

We take you back to July 4, when the Winnipeg Jets were publicly celebrating the signing of hometown hockey hero Jonathan Toews with a glitzy news conference at the downtown rink.

“There’s a lot of names at the top of the list of who is a free agent, but I’d like to think we got the best one,” Jets head coach Scott Arniel told reporters that day.

Then, when asked where Toews might fit into the lineup, the bench boss recalled a telephone chat the two men had shared prior to pen being put to paper.

“One the conversations was, ‘Arnie, I don’t want anything given to me, I’ll start on the fourth line,’” said Arniel, who laughed at the notion.

“I don’t think that would go over very well, a month or two on the fourth line.”

Fast forward to the present, and history shows Toews was immediately given second-line duties on a team coming off its best season in franchise history.

But now — two months after his NHL comeback story began — there was Toews down on the fourth line. And not even at his natural position of centre, but on the right wing beside Morgan Barron and Cole Koepke.

“I’ve always prided myself on the way I play at both ends of the rink and playing a two-way game as a centreman.”

So how, exactly, is that going over?

“I think there’s a little part of it where it’s a little bit of a check to your ego,” Toews told the Free Press prior to puck drop against the Dallas Stars.

“And I think I’ve always prided myself on the way I play at both ends of the rink and playing a two-way game as a centreman, so the second you kind of see your name on the wing, it’s a bit of an adjustment.”

This is obviously not how anyone drew things up, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And the slumping Jets simply can’t afford to wait any longer to see if the struggling Toews can re-discover his game, at least not in a prominent role.

Arniel said Toews took the demotion like a champ.

“That’s the part about Jonathan, he’s been fantastic about everything. Our very first conversation, way, way back in the summer, was just, ‘I want to fit in and I just want to do whatever I can to help the team win,’” Arniel said.

“I didn’t envision him being where he is right now. I’m just trying to get four lines going and I’m trying to get him going.”

Toews has just one point — a secondary assist — over his last 12 games. His nine points (three goals, six assists) in 28 games are the fewest of any NHL team’s second-line centre except for the last-place Vancouver Canucks.

“It’s just taking a little bit of the wear and tear of (Toews) having to defend all of the time in our end of the rink,” Arniel said of the shift to the wing.

“At the end of the day, he’s open. For me, with Jonathan, he just wants us, first, to have success. The biggest thing is us winning, that’s what he cares most about. However it comes about, wherever he is and the part he plays, however large or small. Because that’s what he wants first and foremost.”

The Jets — and Toews himself — have always insisted this relationship was never about how he plays in October, November or even December. The hope was for him to keep building, with the payoff coming in the spring, where his three Stanley Cups might help lead to a lengthy playoff run.

There’s just one potential problem.

“We’ve got to get in,” said Arniel. And right now, the Jets are on the outside looking in, and a lack of production from Toews along with plenty of his ice-cold teammates is a big reason why.

“With Jonathan, he just wants us, first, to have success. The biggest thing is us winning, that’s what he cares most about.”

The original plan was for Toews to anchor Winnipeg’s second line with Cole Perfetti and fellow free-agent signing Gustav Nyquist on the wings. Against the Stars, none of them were in the top six: Toews was on the fourth line, Perfetti was moved to the third line with Vlad Namestnikov and Tanner Pearson, and Nyquist was a healthy scratch for a fourth straight game.

“Regardless of (where) your name is on that that board and the lineup you just want to go out there and help your team, and I think we’ve been working hard as a group to break through and find some offence,” sad Toews.

The 37-year-old admitted the NHL game has changed considerably during his two-year, health-related hiatus, which has caught him by surprise at times.

“Everyone on the ice is so skilled nowadays and the game is so fast. There’s not a lot of room,” he said.

“For me, it’s not just when I have the puck and getting my feet moving and creating space for myself, it’s playing a little bit better without the puck and being a little bit more of a threat to be a shooter in certain areas when my teammates or my linemates have the puck.”

Toews insisted he’s feeling “better and better” physically with each passing game, even if the results aren’t showing. All of which can take an emotional toll on a proud athlete not used to any type of struggle.

“Sometimes it’s a little bit easier to not get wrapped up in your own thing when the team’s going through it. You tend to find a way to gravitate to the energy that the locker room needs when we’re all going through something like that,” he said.

“Everyone on the ice is so skilled nowadays and the game is so fast. There’s not a lot of room.”

“I think it’s just trying to be a positive, lighthearted energy that’s showing up grateful to play hockey and grateful to go to work and to be able to do it in a locker room like this every day. You keep reminding yourself of the big picture of what things look like and what they could look like at the end of the year.”

A little reality check never hurts either — such as the one he and his teammates got on Monday afternoon when they made their annual holiday visit to the Children’s Hospital and Children’s Rehabilitation Centre.

“It’s easy to get caught up and focus on your problems or the things that you feel aren’t going perfectly well in your life. But then when you go visit people who are going through some real stuff, it snaps you out of that immediately,” said Toews.

“It definitely gives perspective. I think it gives you a little bit more inspiration, too, to keep counting your blessings instead of focusing on the negative and just going from there. I think it was a good thing that we did that. Obviously a lot of guys in this locker room understand the influence that they have, so it’s pretty cool to be a part of that.”

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