NHL Notebook: Jets sign Jonathan Toews, Stars trade Mason Marchment, and more

Back in January, Toews spoke with Matthew Robertson of GQ Magazine and opened up about his battle with chronic inflammatory response syndrome. Toews announced ahead of the 2023-24 season that he’d be stepping away from the NHL as he tried to get his health challenges under control. He spent five weeks in India practicing Ayurveda, a traditional form of alternative medicine that involves yoga, meditation, and enemas to fix an issue that had been plaguing him since he was a teenager.

Selected with the third-overall pick in the 2006 draft, Toews played 1,067 games with the Hawks over 15 seasons, captaining the team to three Stanley Cups in 2010, 2013, and 2015. He won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP after Chicago’s first Cup and won the Selke Trophy as the league’s best defensive forward after their second. Toews also won gold with Team Canada at the Olympics in 2010 and 2014.

Toews last played in 2022-23 with the Chicago Blackhawks, scoring 15 goals and 31 points over 53 games on a team that went 26-49-7. Now 37, Toews is returning to the NHL with a team that hasn’t been able to get over the hump. The Jets have had a lot of regular-season success, but they haven’t reached the Conference Finals since 2017-18. Winnipeg went 56-22-4 in 2024-25, the best regular season in team history, and lost in the second round.

Stars re-sign Duchene, trade Marchment to Kraken

The Dallas Stars have done some housekeeping work since falling to the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Final earlier this spring.

The team announced on Thursday that they re-signed Matt Duchene to a four-year, $18 million contract with a full no-move clause in the first two years of the deal. Duchene inked a one-year deal with Dallas last off-season after being bought out by the Nashville Predators and led the Stars with 82 points in 82 games in the regular season.

Not long after that contract was announced, the Stars and Seattle Kraken linked up on a trade to free up some salary cap room for Dallas. The Stars sent Mason Marchment to the Kraken in exchange for a 2026 third-round pick and a 2025 fourth-round pick.

Over three seasons with the Stars, Marchment had 56 goals and 75 assists for 131 points in 211 regular-season games, along with eight goals and eight assists for 16 points in 49 playoff games. He has one more year left on his contract with a $4.5 million cap hit.

Sam Bennett expresses interest in re-signing with Panthers

Soon-to-be unrestricted free agent Sam Bennett doesn’t seem to have any plans to leave the Florida Panthers. While celebrating the team’s second of back-to-back Stanley Cups earlier this week, Bennett made a reference to the film The Wolf of Wall Street, saying: “I ain’t f–king leaving!”

Bennett scored 25 goals and 51 points over 76 regular-season games for the Panthers in 2024-25. In the playoffs, he led the league with 15 goals over 23 games and was voted the first Conn Smythe Trophy winner in team history.