In two of his three years as a Chicago Blackhawk, superstar Connor Bedard has suffered a somewhat serious injury that sidelined him for double-digit games. As a rookie, he suffered a fractured jaw when taking a hit. Last season, he suffered a separated right shoulder against the Blues in December, missing a total of 12 games. From everything we heard from the Blackhawks during that time, it was a gruelingly painful experience that saw him initially skate directly to the locker room while doubled over in pain.
At practice on Thursday afternoon, Bedard might have given everyone a bit of deja vu. Ryan McGregor, host of postgame show Blackhawks Conversation, reported that Bedard left practice holding his left shoulder in a way that “closely resembled the incident in December.”
It’s worth noting that the two injuries were on opposite sides and should be in no way correlated. McGregor reported that Bedard wasn’t downed as a result of a hit, but rather from an awkward fall. Bedard wasn’t skating at the Blackhawks’ development camp, but instead in his hometown of Vancouver alongside other notable NHLers. McGregor has been covering Bedard’s training in Vancouver, but it may take a while to get a better understanding of the severity of his injury due to limited media exposure.
There’s been plenty of talk about Bedard this offseason, but almost none of it has been about his on-ice game. Now a restricted free agent, his camp and Chicago are in serious contract talks and should be closing in on a massive extension that will make him the highest-paid Blackhawk in franchise history. The rest of the conversation has been on finding him a linemate—as of right now, options appear limited to youngsters like Roman Kantserov and Ryan Greene, etc., at least until the Blackhawks make a big move up front.
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To get ahead of the comments on social media, this doesn’t make Bedard injury-prone. It doesn’t hamper his contract value. It doesn’t mean he’s a bust. But it is certainly worth keeping an eye on. In the hypothetical scenario that it’s a similar injury to the one he suffered in December, he’d be missing multiple weeks. It shouldn’t be a concern by the Blackhawks’ opener three months from now, but it’ll certainly be less than ideal if Bedard misses significant time before then, including training camp and preseason games.
