The Chicago Blackhawks’ season has gotten off to a disastrous start - more of the same coming off four consecutive last-place finishes in the Central Division.
But Blackhawks superstar Connor Bedard is not resigning to calling this a ‘more of the same’ season just yet.
“We all said we think we’re going to win this year,” Bedard told The Athletic’s Mark Lazerus on Wednesday morning. “We set the expectations on ourselves. We expect it. Yeah, maybe in a couple years, everyone will be better because they’re older, but we came into this year expecting to be a good team and to win, and that hasn’t changed at all.”
The expectations have not matched the performance on the ice. Chicago dropped to 4-11-1 with a 5-3 loss against the Florida Panthers on Wednesday night - their fourth loss in a row.
The Blackhawks rank ahead of only the Vancouver Canucks in points this season, and their -27 goal differential in the worst in the NHL.
Chicago’s turn from NHL elite (qualifying for the playoffs in nine consecutive seasons from 2008-17, winning three Stanley Cup titles in that time frame) to the league’s basement (one playoff appearance in the past nine seasons, with 84 points in 2019-20 marking the most in a single season in that span) has been quick and harsh.
The dynasty established under head coach Joel Quenneville and the star-studded cast including Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook has not been easy to replace since.
That has led to calls for yet another change in management, targeting general manager Kyle Davidson - who declined an interview with The Athletic - and head coach Jeff Blashill, who is in his second season at the helm. Davidson signed a multi-year contract extension in April, while Blashill is in the second year of a four-year deal.
TNT analyst Paul Bissonnette ripped the team during Wednesday’s nationally televised game, repeatedly calling them “horrible,” among other words.
Bedard has not allowed that talk to make its way into the Blackhawks locker room.
“I haven’t noticed it,” Bedard said about the growing call for heads to roll. “I don’t think guys feel that way. We’re just focused on our group, on everyone that is involved in pushing this thing forward and trying to make us better.
“We don’t really focus on that much or hear much outside noise. We’re in here every day trying to get better. We have a pretty — I don’t want to say happy, but just a positive group, guys that come to the rink and bring a lot of positive energy, and I think that helps a lot when you’re going through a slump.”
To his credit, Blashill is not sounding off alarm bells either, despite a recent history of Blackhawks coaches being fired after slow starts - Quenneville in 2018 after a 6-6-3 start, Jeremy Colliton in 2021 after starting the season 1-9-2 and Luke Richardson in 2024 after an 8-16-2 opening to the campaign.
“I’d prefer the word ‘urgency’ over ‘desperate,’” Blashill said before Wednesday’s game. “I think when people do desperate things, they’re usually bad, you know what I mean? But I get the verbiage. There’s certainly an urgency level. But that hasn’t changed. Our urgency level has been high for a while. We understand that we need to turn these outings where we’re in a position to win a hockey game into wins.”
The Blackhawks have won just one of their past seven games and will not have an easy time turning things around in the near future with three games on the schedule against Eastern Conference playoff teams from last season in the Tampa Bay Lightning, Carolina Hurricanes and Buffalo Sabres.