“Once you’re in the game, it’s not as much because you’re so focused on playing and stuff, but maybe the first little bit or when you play against guys that you grew up watching and whatnot. Once the game starts, it’s just hockey. It’s just another guy you’re going against,” Bedard said. “Obviously, you’ve got to be pretty cautious with him on the ice. He’s obviously one of the best to ever do it, but it’s always fun to compete against the best and try to challenge yourself in that way.”
His return should bring some stability to the lines and the top power-play unit, where Bedard, Kane and Kantserov were working with forward Tyler Bertuzzi and defenseman Bowen Byram on Monday. During power-play drills, Bedard was on the left side, where he's usually setting up near the left circle, and Kane was back on the right.
Kane has fed plenty of forwards around the left circle on the power play in his career, including Patrick Sharp, Alex DeBrincat and Artemi Panarin.
"The way that teams kill now is a little different," Kane said. "The seam pass has kind of died on the power play but you're always looking for that play. It's always one of the first looks when you get the puck on that side to see if that seam is open. It's such a dangerous, dangerous play and obviously Connor's got a great shot, too, and he can make a lot of plays.
"It's just talking through things as a unit. How do we want to attack the kill? How do we want to set up what we want to set up, get pucks to the net, make sure we're on pucks, get pucks back, that type of thing."
Bedard was named the second youngest captain in Blackhawks history on Sept. 15. At 21 years and 60 days, he's behind Jonathan Toews (20 years, 79 days), who served in that role from 2008-23. The No. 1 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, Bedard has 203 points (75 goals, 128 assists) in 219 games, all for Chicago. He has led the Blackhawks in points in each of his first three NHL seasons, including last season when he had NHL career highs in points (75), goals (30) and assists (45).
He won the Calder Trophy as NHL rookie of the year in 2023-24.
Chicago is 1-5-0 this season, its lone victory 4-2 against St. Louis on Oct. 6.
“It’s never easy,” Blackhawks coach Jeff Blashill said. “I think if you look around the League, guys who miss training camp, it’s hard. A lot of times those guys don’t have great years. I don’t anticipate that with Connor, but it doesn’t make it easy.
“We have to understand we’re adding a good piece to the puzzle, but we can’t expect him to put the puzzle together by himself.”
