NEW YORK -- Ask a question about Devon Toews in the Colorado Avalanche dressing room and his teammates respond with an unprompted comparison.
"He's kind of like our Nicklas Lidstrom out there," Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon said. "His style, his stick and his IQ is through the roof."
Lidstrom won the Norris Trophy seven times in his Hall of Fame career with the Detroit Red Wings. He's a four-time Stanley Cup champion and an Olympic gold medalist.
Toews has the Stanley Cup championship and next year, he may get the chance at an Olympic gold, but he may never sniff the Norris Trophy, which goes to the NHL's best defensemen each season considering his partner is Cale Makar, who could win it for a second time this season.
"If you threw him in any other era, he's basically in my opinion Nicklas Lidstrom," Makar told NHL.com.
Lidstrom was the best defenseman in his era. Makar is on his way to being the same in his.
Toews is the longshot who made it big, a New York Islanders' fourth-round pick in the 2014 NHL Draft who didn't play full time in the NHL until 2019, the very definition of late bloomer. But his value to Makar, the Avalanche and now to Hockey Canada can't be overstated.
Toews and Makar have formed arguably the best defense pair in the NHL for four years. They will be that against Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers on Friday (9 p.m. ET; TVAS, SNW, ALT, KUSA), and they should be given a chance to do the same for Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off, starting against Sweden at Bell Centre on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS).