The Blackhawks released a statement on Wednesday afternoon detailing the recovery timeline for Connor Bedard following an injury he sustained during an offseason practice last week.
The news is not good.
Injury Update on Connor Bedard ❤️ pic.twitter.com/v1SXNAdSp8
— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) July 8, 2026
Below is a clip of the incident (courtesy of @BlackhawksFocus on Twitter) when Bedard apparently injured the shoulder, which surfaced online last Thursday evening. Watch as Bedard falls awkwardly near the boards after moving the puck, with his left shoulder appearing to take the brunt of the impact:
I have video of Connor Bedard leaving practice today with a left shoulder injury, as first reported by @RyanmcgregorCHI. You can hear him in severe pain as he leaves the ice: pic.twitter.com/MySM1UwLht
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) July 2, 2026
The left shoulder was the injured one this time around. Last December, Bedard injured his right shoulder while taking a late-game faceoff against the St. Louis Blues and missed about a month of action as a result:
This injury requiring surgery suggests it was much worse, and the four-month timeline knocks Bedard out of the lineup until at least November. Last season’s schedule was a bit more condensed due to the Olympics break in the middle of it but Chicago played 11 games in October and 14 more in November, so this injury seems like it could cost Bedard somewhere around one-third of the upcoming season.
Bedard played a full 82 games during his second season with the Hawks in 2024-25, but this injury means that the former No. 1 overall pick is likely heading for a new career now in games played after playing 68 and 69 in his first and third seasons, respectively. It also strikes a significant blow in Chicago’s stated target of taking actual steps forward in the upcoming hockey season, because a team that has struggled to consistently generate offense for the last several seasons will now be without the one player who does it better than any others on the lineup. Oh, and he’s still without a contract for the upcoming season, too.
The 2026-27 season hasn’t even started yet and another line of awfully dark clouds are already building over it.