"For myself, I'm taking it as if these are my last games in Chicago," the Blackhawks captain told the Chicago Sun-Times on Saturday.
Toews, who has played all 1,064 NHL games with the Blackhawks, and won the Stanley Cup three times, is an unrestricted free agent after this season.
The 34-year-old center announced on Feb. 21 that he was stepping away from the Blackhawks to deal with the effects of long COVID-19 and Chronic Immune Response Syndrome, which kept him out the entire 2020-21 season.
Toews returned to practice with the Blackhawks on March 28 for the first time in two months. He returned to the lineup in Chicago's 6-3 loss to the New Jersey Devils on April 1, his first game since Jan. 28.
"I really worked hard and put a lot in to try to get back into the lineup before the end of the season so I could have the opportunity to do this and really soak it in for myself," Toews said. "I owe so much to the fans and the people in the city that made it so special to be a Blackhawk for all these years. I owe a lot to the organization; they've given me everything."
The Blackhawks play the Minnesota Wild at United Center on Monday (9 p.m. ET; ESPN) and finish their regular season at home against the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday. They have been eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoffs contention.
"Sitting where I am right now, it's hard to predict what the emotions will be like," Toews said. "But there's no doubt that it's starting to sink in, for sure."
Toews has 30 points (14 goals, 16 assists) in 50 games this season. The No. 3 selection by the Blackhawks in the 2006 NHL Draft, he has 882 points (371 goals, 511 assists) in 1,064 career games.
He is in the final season of an eight-year contract he signed with the Blackhawks on July 9, 2014.
Toews helped the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup in 2010, 2013 and 2015. He won the Conn Smythe Trophy as most valuable player of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 2010 and the Selke Trophy as the League's best defensive forward in 2012-13.
The Blackhawks have been eliminated from playoff contention in five of the past six seasons. They are in the midst of a rebuild during which they've aggressively remade their roster.
The biggest move came when they traded forward Patrick Kane to the New York Rangers in a three-team trade that also included the Arizona Coyotes on Feb. 28. Toews and Kane had been teammates since each entered the NHL with the Blackhawks in 2007-08 and they played their 1,000th NHL game together in a 7-1 loss to the Rangers on Dec. 18.
Though he said he's treating these last games with the Blackhawks as possibly the end of his time in Chicago, Toews said last month he's not ready to say this is the end of his NHL career.
"I'm not near making that decision yet, and I don't feel like with what I've been through this year and this past season that I have enough clarity on what that decision will be," he said March 31.
"I think either that decision will be clear for me this summer, or it'll be a situation where I'm really feeling good and really excited and just really ready to train and prepare to get myself to a place where I can play high level hockey again and just enjoy the game. I want to be able to be in that place where I'm really having fun and playing at a high level and contributing to my team the way I know I can."
