The Chicago Blackhawks couldn’t make it through July without getting terrible injury news. After suffering an injury in offseason training, star center Connor Bedard is expected to miss four months after undergoing left shoulder surgery.
Last week, video surfaced of Bedard taking a hard fall in an on-ice training session. He exited the ice in obvious discomfort, and the Blackhawks’ worst fears have become reality.
I have video of Connor Bedard leaving practice today with a left shoulder injury, as first revealed by @RyanmcgregorCHI. You can hear him in severe pain as he leaves the ice: pic.twitter.com/MySM1UwLht
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) July 2, 2026
This is the second shoulder injury Bedard has suffered in a matter of months. In December, Bedard suffered a shoulder injury against the St. Louis Blues, and he was forced to miss 12 games. Bedard has missed at least 13 games in two of his first three NHL seasons, and he will be out for an extended stretch to begin the 2026-27 campaign.
Based on the timeline provided by the team, Bedard should return in early November. In the past, that meant he may only miss two or three weeks, but he’ll be out at least double that with the NHL reducing its preseason and expanding to 84 regular-season games. Bedard is now slated to miss over a month, with opening night pushed up to late September.
The No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, Bedard has flashed superstar potential on many occasions, but injuries and a miserable supporting cast have prevented him from making a permanent jump into the league’s elite tier. Bedard’s production — 30 goals and 45 assists in 69 games — was outstanding last year. However, like the rest of the team, his game still has plenty of warts defensively.
After swinging a polarizing trade for Buffalo Sabres defenseman Bowen Byram, the Blackhawks were hoping their rebuild would finally turn a corner in 2026-27. Bedard is entering his fourth year, other top prospects look ready to assume bigger roles and Spencer Knight has emerged as a budding star in goal.
Now, Bedard’s injury has thrown a wrench into those plans, and the Blackhawks will have to weather an early-season storm.
Another setback for Bedard, Blackhawks
The Blackhawks haven’t reached the playoffs once since 2017 — the 2020 bubble postseason — and have been rebuilding in earnest since the 2020-21 season. Six seasons later, that rebuild has yielded little progress.
Chicago went 29-39-14 and finished 31st in the league last year. That was an 11-point improvement over the previous season, but it still left them 18 points out of a playoff spot. After digging itself such a deep hole at the start of the rebuild, the franchise still has a long way to go before it re-establishes itself as a Stanley Cup contender.
Even if Bedard had been healthy to start the season, the Blackhawks would’ve been a long shot to make the playoffs. There are already serious questions about Byram’s ability to be a No. 1 defenseman, and there is a big dropoff behind him on the blue line. Up front, a lot of things would need to break Chicago’s way in order for the team to contend for the postseason.
The Hawks were — and still are — counting on big jumps from Frank Nazar, Anton Frondell and Oliver Moore. Each is a former first-round pick, but they’ve combined for 194 games and 100 points. It’s possible that the trio is quite formidable a few years from now, but in 2026-27? That’s a bit of a stretch.
As far as Bedard is concerned, he was poised for another leap forward, but now he’ll be behind the curve when he returns in November. It’s probably unfair to expect Bedard to be at his best immediately upon his return, especially with a new coach implementing a new scheme, so the first quarter of the season could be gone by the time Bedard is fully comfortable.
That’s a tough blow for a player who needs to reach another level for his team to do the same. It could still happen, but Bedard’s injury gives the Blackhawks zero room for error. Is the team around Bedard good enough to stay afloat without him for the first 15 games of the season? Is Bedard good enough on his own that he could drag the Blackhawks back into the playoff race when he returns? I just haven’t seen enough evidence of either to believe Chicago has more than a slim chance of making the playoffs.
If Chicago is looking for a silver lining, it’s that the threat of another team throwing a gargantuan offer sheet at Bedard is much lower now. Opposing teams probably don’t want to throw a boatload of money at Bedard without knowing more about the long-term health of his shoulder. That being the case, general manager Kyle Davidson needs to take this chance to hammer out a contract extension with his star in short order.
