{"id":347681,"date":"2025-12-14T15:14:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T15:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/347681\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T15:14:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T15:14:07","slug":"connor-bedard-not-expected-to-travel-with-blackhawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/347681\/","title":{"rendered":"Connor Bedard Not Expected To Travel With Blackhawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a tough weekend for the Chicago Blackhawks, as on Friday, franchise center Connor Bedard<\/a> suffered an injury in the closing moments of the team\u2019s loss, and then on Saturday the team, without Bedard, was shut out 4-0 by the Detroit Red Wings. The most recent reporting regarding Bedard\u2019s injury indicates that things are unlikely to get easier for the Blackhawks in the immediate future.<\/p>\n

Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman reported on yesterday\u2019s \u201cSaturday Headlines\u201d segment<\/a> that the Blackhawks \u201care still collecting information\u201d regarding Bedard\u2019s injury and what a recovery timeline might look like. Friedman said he believes Bedard had an MRI on Saturday and that the Blackhawks are \u201cstill determining what the plan\u2019s going to be\u201d regarding his recovery.<\/p>\n

The Blackhawks are set to travel on a three-game road trip this week, and per Friedman, Bedard is \u201cnot expected to travel\u201d for at least the beginning of the road trip as the team continues to sort out his injury.<\/p>\n

It goes without saying that any extended Bedard absence would deal a potentially fatal blow to the Blackhawks\u2019 ability to stay afloat in the Western Conference playoff race. The Blackhawks, under new head coach Jeff Blashill, have surprised some this season, amassing a better-than-expected 13-13-6 record, which puts them three points behind the San Jose Sharks for the final Wild Card spot with a game in hand.<\/p>\n

That better-than-expected start to 2025-26 has occurred in large part thanks to Bedard\u2019s heroics. While he didn\u2019t quite \u201cpop\u201d in his sophomore season the way some might have expected, Bedard has taken a major leap in 2025-26. He has 19 goals and 44 points in just 31 games, which is a 50-goal, 115-point full-season pace.<\/p>\n

The Blackhawks have used Bedard heavily this season, and he\u2019s just two seconds per game behind defenseman Alex Vlasic<\/a> for the team lead in time-on-ice per game, something that in most cases belongs to a defenseman.<\/p>\n

Put simply, in 2025-26, Bedard has been exactly the kind of franchise-altering talent he was billed to be by scouts and the media ahead of the 2023 draft. Losing Bedard for any period of time would put a significant amount of additional stress on the Blackhawks\u2019 depth chart down the middle. 2022 first-rounder Frank Nazar<\/a> has nearly matched his 2024-25 scoring total with 20 points in 30 games (he had 26 points in 53 games last year) but to expect him to fill Bedard\u2019s shoes would be a mistake.<\/p>\n

The Blackhawks rank No. 23 in the NHL averaging 2.84 goals per game, and that\u2019s even with Bedard scoring at a top-five rate in the NHL. Without Bedard, the sources of offense dry up rapidly. Beyond Nazar, only veterans Tyler Bertuzzi<\/a> and Andre Burakovsky<\/a> have reached 20 points this season. The Blackhawks couldn\u2019t find the back of the net without Bedard Saturday against Detroit, and they could continue to struggle to score with Bedard out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a tough weekend for the Chicago Blackhawks, as on Friday, franchise center Connor Bedard suffered an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,7520,28932,10232,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-347681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","11":"tag-connor-bedard","12":"tag-newsstand","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}