Catching Up With Devon Toews

Since 2013, the Northeast has become a second home for New York Islanders defenseman Devon Toews. After spending three years in Hamden, Connecticut playing Division l hockey for the Quinnipiac Bobcats, Toews moved 24 minutes south to pursue his pro hockey career in Bridgeport. Two-and-a-half seasons later, he's become a mainstay up top with the Islanders and was in the midst of a career-best sophomore season prior to the NHL's indefinite pause issued on March 12.

It's become so much of a home that the Abbotsford, British Columbia native decided to stay on Long Island during the pause. And like everyone else in one of the country's hot spots, the COVID-19 outbreak has not only affected him professionally, but the magnitude of the virus has also impacted his personal life.

"I've been in this area for the last six or seven years with school too," Toews said. "It's unfortunate to see the devastation of families being hurt and saddened and seeing the toll it's taken."

The Northeast is where Toews, now 26-years-old, grew into adulthood and also where he met his fiancé, Kerry Wetzelberger. The couple was set to wed this July in New Jersey, but given the circumstances, are unsure if their special day will take place as planned.

"I think we have a pretty good mindset on it; it's out of our control right now," Toews said. "We might have to push it a little bit. At times, it's unfortunate and sad trying to switch everything and all of the hard work that Kerry has put in... A ton of my family had already committed to flying out and they were all excited. It's going to be on hold and if there is a wedding, it's going to be to a smaller capacity. It's a wait-and-see thing right now."

While the status of his wedding and the remainder of the 2019-20 NHL season remain undecided, the outbreak has provided Toews with a different perspective. He's witnessed the ingenuity of Kerry and her father, who are both teachers in New Jersey, and have adapted to instructing remotely.

"[Kerry] is here [on Long Island] teaching online and is bunkered down doing Zoom meetings with kids and doing different little projects with [her first grade students]," Toews said. "She's crushing it and doing really well. It's amazing seeing her do her work...Just the way she's been able to be creative with the kids to do different lessons, to go outside and use their different senses and smells, and just interact with the world."

Toews has also gained an appreciation for the unwavering bravery from Kerry's mom, sister and aunt, who are all nurses on the front lines battling COVID-19.

"Her mom, her sister and her aunt are all on the front lines and their health is still good," Toews said. "They haven't gotten the virus or gotten sick from it. They're right there too and they're [at] a high-susceptibility to it. The fact that they're healthy and we're healthy throughout our friendships and families -- so far at least, we haven't heard of anyone contracting the virus -- so as long as we're healthy that's the most important thing."

With so much lingering uncertainty and unknowns, Toews has dedicated his time and energy towards the outcomes within his control.

The creature of habit has maintained a strict workout regimen beginning at 7:30-8 a.m. on weekdays. A couple of days a week, Toews connects via Zoom with his former teammates from Quinnipiac, whom he trains with during the offseason, as they push each other on the Peloton bike or during circuit training.

"It makes it harder, but in a better sense," Toews said. "There's different guys pushing you and you're competing with them as well. That inner competition and friendly competition is fun to do, especially right now, when you can't have that in a gym or on the ice with each other."

He's also taken to Instagram to maintain the camaraderie with his fellow Isles teammates and accepted workout challenges spearheaded by Jean-Gabriel Pageau and passed on by Noah Dobson.

Five weeks without skating was long enough, before Toews caved and purchased rollerblades for himself and Kerry, in an attempt to somewhat replicate the motions of skating.

"We've been rollerblading around to get that skating feel in-tune," Toews said." Walking, to me, gets boring eventually. You can only do so much. The rollerblades you can fly around a little bit and turn and do different things on them that you can't do when you're just walking."

After having a breakout 2018-19 season, highlighted by a second-round berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Toews entered his sophomore season determined to build off of the foundation he had established. The mindset, keep doing the things that earned him a call-up in the first place.

"Just trying to stay consistent in the game that I bring and not trying to reach too far outside of that or try to do things that are out of my realm of hockey characteristics," Toews said. "I'm just trying to learn as we go, a lot of it is still new. Just trying to learn from [my teammates] and from other teams and what they're trying to do to us. Obviously, we bring a certain style of game that's hard for teams to break down, but teams are going to get through. It's figuring out how they do that and how we can shut it down next time."

Toews got off to a fast start, as he scored the Isles first goal of the 2019-20 campaign in the season opener against Washington on Oct. 4. In 68 games, Toews set new career-highs across the board with his 28 points (6G, 22A) and led defenseman in power-play time on ice per game (2:14) as he quarterbacked one of the Isles extra-man units. Paired alongside Scott Mayfield, who was his d-partner the year prior, the duo took strides and earned confidence from the coaching staff to evolve into one of the Isles' most consistent shutdown pairs, especially in the wake of injuries to the blueline.

"We had that chemistry even just early last year when we started playing together, it just clicked for us," Toews said. "It was nice in a way to keep that going; to learn off of it, to build off of it and challenge ourselves to keep that gong and see what else we could do and what else we could bring to the table for our team. [There was] just more responsibility for both of us with who we were playing against and the situations we were playing against too. That's on the coaches for trusting us and us trusting them with what they're trying to do with us."

Eight games leading up to the NHL's pause, Toews felt he had turned the corner in his own game and was confident in the Isles ability to clinch a playoff spot despite the congested race within the Metropolitan Division. Toews remains hopeful that the season will be salvaged and is confident that he and his teammates will be prepared to resume no matter what the potential format may be.