Connor Bedard just handed Jeff Blashill a brutal summer turn, and Chicago's season clock already feels off.
The Blackhawks announced Wednesday that Bedard had surgery on his left shoulder and is expected to need 4 months to recover, which means he will miss the start of the 2026-27 season.
That is a hard hit for a team still built around his growth. Bedard is Chicago's No. 1 center, and there is no soft way to replace that at puck drop in October.
The timing makes it even worse because Bedard was coming off his best NHL season. He led the Blackhawks with 75 points, including 30 goals and 45 assists, in 69 games.
This also is not his first health interruption. Bedard missed 12 games last season after an upper-body injury in December, and he missed 14 games as a rookie after suffering a fractured jaw in January 2024.
Now the whole summer shifts. Kyle Davidson said on July 1 there was no update on contract talks, and this surgery drops another layer of uncertainty on a file that was already hanging open.
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Connor Bedard is expected to miss several months with an injury
This is where Blashill really feels it. His first full season behind the Blackhawks bench was supposed to start with Bedard pushing the pace from Day 1, not rehabbing through the opening stretch.
Chicago can talk about depth and next-man-up plans, but Bedard is not just another top-six forward. He drives the middle of the ice, runs the attack, and gives the bench its clearest danger every night. That is an inference from his role and team-leading production.
The injury also arrives after a summer when the Blackhawks were still trying to push the roster forward around him. Losing that centerpiece for even the first month changes line combinations, power-play touches, and the whole feel of camp. That is an inference from the official recovery timeline and Chicago's offseason direction.
There is still one good break in this. The team got the surgery done now, not in September, which at least gives Bedard a clean runway into rehab before the regular season starts. That is an inference from the July 8 announcement and the 4-month estimate.
But nobody in Chicago is going to frame this as small. Bedard turns 21 on July 17, and instead of rolling into camp building on a 75-point year, he is heading into another recovery block.
That is why this news lands so hard. It does not change what Bedard is, and it does not change what Chicago thinks it has in him. It just delays the whole push again, and for a young team still trying to climb, that is a nasty way to start a season.
Will Connor Bedard's injury derail the Blackhawks' start to next season?
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