CHICAGO -- Connor Bedard said he and the Chicago Blackhawks have “100 percent belief” in Jeff Blashill and the job he’s doing as their coach.
“I think he gives us a great game plan and he’s super easy to talk to,” the Blackhawks captain said after practice Wednesday. “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.
“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). 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 Blackhawks (4-13-1) had high expectations coming into this season but have struggled from the start. They have lost six in a row (0-5-1) entering their home game against the Buffalo Sabres (8-6-3) on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; CHSN, MSG-B).
The Blackhawks had a series of meetings between their coaching staff, hockey operations and management on Sunday following their 9-2 loss at the defending Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday. There was also a players-only meeting after the game, with Bedard describing it as “just kind of giving ourselves a chance to get some frustration out.”
Blashill is in his second season coaching the Blackhawks. They were 29-39-14 with him last season.
Chicago hasn’t qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 2020.
“I have full confidence in him,” Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson said of Blashill on Wednesday. “The players believe in him, he’s made them better and they’ve stated that to you.
“I’ve seen this perception out there that he’s stubborn, he doesn’t want to change, and I contradict that based on my experience with ‘Blash’ and in our conversations. He’s someone who seeks out feedback, wants alternative opinions and he’s behind everything I’ve laid out and said so far and everything I say today. We’re very much on the same page with how we assess the team and how we think we can be better moving forward.”
Davidson said the immediate focus is getting better on defense. The Blackhawks are allowing 4.22 goals per game this season, second most in the NHL. Only the Vancouver Canucks are allowing more (4.50 per game).
“Just the little details, kind of things to clean up,” Bedard said of the message to the team. “I think we’re giving teams easy chances and that’s not good in the NHL when teams are as good as they are. They’re going to create their own chances sometimes and that’s part of it, but when you give them free looks and put that stress on our goalies, it’s tough. So just clean it up in areas like that.”
It hasn’t helped that defenseman Bowen Byram, whom the Blackhawks acquired from the Sabres with forward Jordan Greenway for the Nos. 4 and 45 picks in the 2026 NHL Draft and defenseman Louis Crevier on June 23, has been out for much of the early season. Byram has missed the past 11 games with an upper-body injury and has seen a specialist for it.
Byram and forward Patrick Kane, who’s been out with an upper-body injury since Nov. 2, both practiced with the Blackhawks on Wednesday. They’re listed as day to day, and Blashill didn’t know when they’d be back in the lineup.
The Blackhawks have yet to have their full lineup in a game this season.
“Obviously, injuries are a bad part of the game and stuff, but there’s hope either way,” Bedard said. “I think we miss those guys and (Byram and Kane) are two of the most important pieces of our team, and we are going to get better when they get back, but that’s not an excuse. We don’t want to even think about that. But when we have our full team, it’s going to be nice and getting those guys back will be an improvement.”
Maybe, but the Blackhawks want to start showing improvement now. They’ll be coming off a four-day break between games and hoped to tighten things up in three straight days of practice.
“We went probably two weeks without a practice and over time it starts to hurt your structure and all that kind of stuff,” Blashill said. “That’s just the way the schedule dictates it. Now we’ve had a chance to revisit those things. We talked about different points of emphasis, things like that, making sure we’re better in certain areas. We’ve had a chance at three productive practices and now we have to go out and play.”
Chicago opens a four-game homestand Thursday. The start hasn’t been to anyone’s liking in the organization, but the Blackhawks hope to salvage the season.
“We still expect to be a really good team, came into the year with super-high expectations and we still have those expectations,” Bedard said. “It’s 18 games in. We have (66) more, but we expect to do exactly what we were talking about earlier in the year. We just kind of dug a little hole but we believe we’re going to climb out of it.”
