Blackhawks’ Connor Bedard backs Jeff Blashill as losing streak continues
· Yahoo Sports
James Guillory-Imagn Images
Blackhawks’ Connor Bedard backs Jeff Blashill as losing streak continues appeared first on ClutchPoints. Add ClutchPoints as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The 2026-27 season is already going off the rails for the Chicago Blackhawks, who are 4-13-1, dead last in the Central Division and mired in a six-game losing streak.
Visit saltysenoritaaz.org for more information.
Despite that, multiple reports have noted that Jeff Blashill is not on the hot seat — and captain Connor Bedard threw his support behind his head coach on Wednesday.
“I think he gives us a great game plan and he’s super easy to talk to,” Bedard told reporters after practice, including NHL.com’s Tracey Myers. “We really know his message. He and the whole coaching staff are doing a great job. It’s on us out there to go and win, obviously for us but for them as well.”
Watch sports LIVE with fuboTV (free trial)
Chicago has just one win since Oct. 17, and five of the six losses on the current skid have come in regulation. The Hawks are dead last in goals for at 2.17 per game and 31st in goals against, ahead of only the last-place Vancouver Canucks.
“There’s no doubt in what they’re preaching, what they’re doing, and we all have a ton of respect and love for all of them. We were obviously very happy to hear that (Blashill is staying),” Bedard added.
“I don’t think anyone in the room ever thought that (he’d be fired). It was outside noise, speculation or whatever. People on the outside could see something happen, but we always have a belief in everyone involved here.”
The Hawks held a players-only meeting after a 9-2 shellacking at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday, with Bedard saying it was a chance for players to “get some frustration out.”
This is Blashill’s second year coaching the Hawks. The team went 29-39-14 in 2025-26, finishing last in the Central Division. Chicago hasn’t been involved in the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 2020.
The hope is that the potential returns of Patrick Kane and Bowen Byram will help stabilize things at both ends of the rink. Kane could be an option on Thursday against the Buffalo Sabres, the start of a critical four-game homestand.
Byram has been upgraded to day-to-day after missing the last 11 games with an upper-body injury.
Regardless of who’s in the lineup, the Blackhawks need to turn things around quickly if they hope to be one of the last eight standing in the Western Conference come April.