Connor Bedard hadn’t played a game since July, when he wrecked his left shoulder in an offseason training session. On Tuesday night at the United Center, the Chicago Blackhawks captain finally got back out against the Pittsburgh Penguins, and he spent his first shift finding out whether the repair job had worked.
He went looking for Connor Dewar and gave him a bump with it.
“I remember last year when I came back, I got blown up my first shift,” Bedard said afterwards, laughing. “I’m happy it wasn’t that. I’m happy I got to rub a guy out. He probably didn’t feel it, but it felt good.”
That reference wasn’t rhetorical. Bedard returned from a right shoulder injury last January against Washington and had a considerably rougher reintroduction, managing only four points across his first eight games back before finding any rhythm.
When did Connor Bedard have shoulder surgery?
Chicago had been braced for a longer wait than this. The club’s original expectation was that it would be early November before he was available, which made Tuesday an arrival several weeks ahead of schedule. The shoulder had gone in a Vancouver training session on July 2, with the operation following inside a week, and the Blackhawks spent the opening fortnight of the season at 1-5 and scoring barely two goals a game without him.
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The physical stuff out of the way, he got on with the part he’s actually paid for. Late in the first period he touched a delicate pass into the bumper for Roman Kantserov to hammer home on the power play, his first point of the season and the goal that got Chicago going.
The Blackhawks won 5-3.
Bedard is 21, the first overall pick from 2023, and signed a five-year, $75 million extension in July that made him one of the highest-paid players in the league. He put up 75 points in 69 games last season despite missing a month, and was handed the captaincy before this one began. Tuesday was his first game wearing the ‘C’.
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