As others have said, on a purely 'individual' level of playing ability, there's no way Toews was ever the 2nd best, no. Crosby was obviously better, and there's no way in an individual comparison that Toews was ever better than Malkin. Bergeron might stand in Toews' way, too, I'm not sure (didn't watch him play much).
It does get interesting after that, though, because all of Datsyuk, Getzlaff, young-Stamkos before injury, Thornton, and H. Sedin were kind of passing their primes around 2012-13 or so.
So, if you take that period of around mid-2010 to mid-2015 as a whole, Toews maybe has an argument as the 2nd best center, but even then it's difficult.
Anyway, good player, I liked him.
At the end of the day, he walks away with:
-- 68 points per season (average), after over 1000 NHL games
-- a +148 in the regular season
-- a 2nd-All Star team season
-- 3 Stanley Cups as team captain
-- 119 career playoff points
-- 1 Selke trophy
-- 1 Conn Smythe
-- 2 Olympic Gold medals (for one of which he was 'best forward')