One Question The Chicago Blackhawks need to answer in 2024-2025

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Joshua Deeds
November 9, 2024 (10:24 PM)

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The Chicago Blackhawks have one question that fans want answered. In 2024-2025 Connor Bedard began his sophomore season, as the first-line center, and like the Blackhawks is expected to take a leap forward.

While he's been performing up to expectations this season, with 15 games played he has scored 13 points( 3 G, 10 A) with a -4 rating.

Bedard has kept his his production up, despite his shooting percentage at 6.8%(yikes) on 50 shots. Inexplicably, this is in contrast to his rookie year, 10.7%. These statistics are all one piece in the puzzle of the question, when will he start to be the game-breaker, and take over games for the Hawks?

Bedard has a staggering 50 shots on goal this season, good for 3.3 per game, and he's second on the team next to Lukas Reichel (seriously) in through percentage at 58.1 among all Blackhawks skaters with at least 11 games played.

Don't let the shooting percentage discount his abilities. Percentages rise and fall without explanation, and even the best players falter.

how Bedard plays you can get an idea of when we should see him provide more than secondary scoring. For example, at least once a game where he finds holes in the defense, breaks through the zone, and attempts a one-on-one with the goalie.

He's performed as well as he could have last season, and even with added help it seems it'll be another year of carrying the Hawks on his back.

Keep in mind, while he is the legitimate face of the Blackhawks franchise, his surrounding cast hasn't lived up to their end of the bargain. Turbo's fire has been put out, and players like Lukas Reichel, Craig Smith, and Ryan Donato have had to step in to provide depth scoring.

As the Blackhawks continue to figure things out amongst themselves and mesh as a hockey team, Bedard will slowly but progressively begin to take over games. Will it happen in November 2024? I'm not saying it won't, but I'm also saying that I would be surprised to see it occurring more than perhaps once or twice.

Captain Nick Foligno gave a gushing review of Bedard as a game-breaker last season giving us an idea of what we can expect to see more of this year.

Nick Foligno described the Vancouver native as a «game breaker player» with the talent he brings to the roster. While the game ended in a loss, Bedard's actions kept the team in a fighting chance and a player that his teammates can appreciate.

«They either win you the game, or they keep you in a game like tonight where maybe we didn't deserve that,» Foligno said. «But he's able to do it sometimes and the way he plays and his individual efforts and his abilities and you appreciate that.»

Bedard's primed to find the back of the net, it just is a matter of when, and not if in our opinion here.

He may not be fully developed as a center in the NHL but with a 61-point season under his belt, we should expect 80 to 90 points during the sophomore.