CHICAGO -- Connor Bedard really can’t explain it.
The rookie, who has a 10-game road point streak for the Chicago Blackhawks entering their game at the Seattle Kraken on Thursday (10 p.m. ET; ROOT-NW, NBCSCH+, TVAS), has been especially productive away from home this season. The 18-year-old center has 17 points (10 goals, seven assists) in 15 road games, and seven points (two goals, five assists) in 13 home games.
Asked recently about the disparity, Bedard said, “I don't know. I was kind of thinking about that myself. Just kind of how it's worked out so far, but I don't really put too much thought into it.”
Bedard’s goal in a 4-1 loss at the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday gave him 14 points (nine goals, five assists) during the streak and made him the 11th rookie in NHL history with a road point streak of at least 10 games. It’s the second-longest such streak by a player 18 or younger, behind Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche (16 games in 2013-14).
“He had a couple of really big games on the road, for sure, in Florida and Tampa,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said of Bedard, who had four points (two goals, two assists) in a 5-3 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Nov. 9 and two assists in his next game, a 4-3 loss to the Florida Panthers on Nov. 12.
“But other than that, I don’t know if there’s any rhyme or reason. We try to get our matchups here, [they’re] usually better. I know in the old days, it used to be the homers (scoring-wise), and everybody was a homer and [you’d] make jokes about it, kind of razz that player on the ice. This is the opposite scenario. Really, I don’t know what the reason is. Good stat, though.”
It's a very good stat for Bedard, who leads NHL rookies with 24 points (12 goals, 12 assists) in 28 games.
Still, the road numbers are glaring for the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft. The Blackhawks don’t get the matchups they want on the road, where they don’t have the last change. Yet here’s Bedard, who’s usually facing teams’ top defenders and checkers on the road, racking up the points.
“You know what it could be,” Blackhawks center Ryan Donato said, “on the road trips he’s started on, he’s a player that, when he gets a goal or an assist, he gets hot and he gets a couple. I don’t know if it’s one of those things, when you go on the road, you usually don’t go for one game. You stay for two to three, three or four.
“Maybe the fact he’s getting hot at the beginning of each road trip allows him to stay hot, and then coming home, it kind of feels like a different trip. We haven’t been home for many games, it’s usually one at a time.”
Donato said this prior to the Blackhawks’ four-game homestand, which they finished Sunday with a 4-2 loss to the Washington Capitals. Bedard had three assists on the homestand, including two against the Capitals. Prior to that, the Blackhawks only had one homestand longer than two games.
Though Chicago has the last change at home, defenseman Connor Murphy said there may be other elements impacting Bedard at United Center.
“I think sometimes at home, you put more pressure on yourself to produce or perform because you think you need to,” Murphy said, “because it’s in front of your fans and you know everyone’s there cheering for you and pulling for you. I’m not saying that’s the answer; it’s the only thing I think could be different. And sometimes it just happens to be that way.”
Whatever the reasons are for Bedard’s bigger numbers on the road, the Blackhawks will take the scoring from him -- wherever it happens.
“It’s definitely more impressive on the road,” Murphy said, “[with] the matchups against him and teams always defend harder in their own building. So, it’s impressive to be producing like that."
