Connor Bedard to miss several weeks due to injury, will be re-evaluated in January

Blackhawks star Connor Bedard will miss several more weeks with an upper-body injury, but it doesn't sound like it's season-threatening.

Coach Jeff Blashill said Monday that Bedard will be "re-evaluated after the New Year," that surgery is not required at this time and that "it’s certainly not the worst prognosis."

"Let’s start with the rehab and see where it goes, and I’ll have a better update after that," Blashill added.

"Honestly, his attitude is good. I think he wants to be back next week. That’s the approach that he takes: he wants to be back. He would’ve preferred I had said 'day-to-day,' but...the reality is we won’t let him do that [until] after the New Year."

The Hawks have seven games left in December for which they won't have the NHL's fourth-leading scorer available, and it seems inevitable he will also miss at least the first couple games of January. It appears to be a right shoulder injury, although Blashill declined to clarify.

The deadline for finalizing rosters for the 2026 Winter Olympics is Dec. 31, so Bedard won't have another opportunity to make his case for Team Canada before then.

Considering Bedard has scored or assisted on 48.4% of the Hawks' total goals this season, his absence is catastrophic. It's difficult to envision a scenario in which the team, which has already lost 10 of 13, doesn't struggle offensively without him.

But they could get a small boost with the return of captain Nick Foligno, who hasn't played since Nov. 15 due to a hand injury. Blashill said Foligno will travel on this week's road trip, and although he won't play Tuesday against the Maple Leafs, he could play Thursday or Saturday against the Canadiens or Senators, respectively.

"Obviously, Connor is a huge piece," Blashill said. "Nobody’s going to replace Connor on their own. Collectively, as a group — we needed to do this anyway — we need to be better defensively. You’re losing some scoring punch. Do I think we’ll score at the same rate? Might not be the reality. So you have to be great defensively.

"[Secondly], in order to keep closer to the scoring rate, I think we’ll have to score dirtier. We have to score those net-front type goals, the tip-type goals. We’re not going to score from distance the way Connor can."

Blashill mentioned how major injuries have run rampant around the NHL lately, which is true. The Lightning, for example, are down four defensemen. The Hawks called up defenseman Ethan Del Mastro from Rockford to provide extra depth on their trip.

Veteran goalie Laurent Brossoit was also called up from his conditioning stint, but he will be placed on waivers, Blashill said. He and the Hawks both hope he will get claimed — his $3.3 million salary-cap hit will be a deterrent — but he will return to Rockford if unclaimed.

The Hawks used the same lines during practice Monday that they did in their shutout loss Saturday against the Red Wings — the first game Bedard missed.

Frank Nazar centered Tyler Bertuzzi and Andre Burakovsky on the first line. Veterans Teuvo Teravainen, Jason Dickinson and Ilya Mikheyev skated together; rookies Nick Lardis, Oliver Moore and Ryan Greene skated together, too. Dominic Toninato, Ryan Donato and Colton Dach composed the fourth line.

Blashill snapped, though, when rookie defenseman Artyom Levshunov missed his turn in a five-on-five drill, yelling at him to "wake the [expletive] up." Blashill intervened in a board-battle drill later to correct Greene's body position.

It was the most animated he has been in a while.

"I don’t fake it," Blashill said. "Emotions are what they are. I come to practice not frustrated. I think frustration is a waste of human emotion. But sometimes we need heightened awareness. My job is to make sure that we’re not letting that urgency slip at all."