Happy 21st birthday, Connor Bedard! Here’s hoping you’re healing, happy and have a pen available just in case the Blackhawks slide a contract in your direction on your birthday the way they did three years ago…
The NHL released the full 2026-27 regular-season schedule yesterday. A couple interesting notes regarding the Blackhawks and back-to-backs. Chicago will play 12 back-to-backs this year (13 teams have more). The Hawks will face a team in the second half of a back-to-back 15 times this season (only four teams have more). Matt Larkin at Daily Faceoff is going thru the divisions and writing about where each team is relative to a championship window. He got to the Central Division yesterday, which is a fascinating proposition given the specific teams. He ranks Dallas and Utah has having their window “wide open” while Colorado and Minnesota are in “win now” mode. Here’s part of what he wrote about the Blackhawks, whose window he considers “under construction.”They’re technically trending up, but their highest point total over that span is 72, and it landed them more than 20 points back of a playoff berth in 2025-26. Chicago just keeps piling up picks and prospects, and its collection of young talent is truly exciting. It’s way beyond just Connor Bedard and Frank Nazar and Anton Frondell and Artyom Levshunov: KHL goal-scoring leader Roman Kantserov has crossed the pond, and Chicago’s “secondary” tier of prospects, from forwards Marek Vanacker and Sacha Boisvert to defenseman Xavier Villeneuve, would be many NHL teams’ top prospects. … It’s possible all the blue-chippers, especially Calder Trophy threats Frondell and Kantserov, finally spark a surge toward playoff contention, as we saw from the San Jose Sharks last season, but Chicago has to prove it at this point to make us believe. It also doesn’t help that Bedard is out until November at the earliest recovering from a shoulder injury sustained during offseason training.
Larkin usually has a more tempered approach to his evaluation of the Blackhawks’ build than many national/league-wide writers, which you can sense from that portion of what he wrote. I appreciate that. It’s coming… but, at some point, it has to happen.Stanley Cup Windows 2026-27: Central Division@MLarkinHockey plots where each NHL franchise sits on its championship contention timeline: t.co/LGCdafTJKJ
— Daily Faceoff (@DailyFaceoff) July 16, 2026 Dom Luszczyszyn at The Athletic wrote about which teams in the NHL improved the most this summer (so far). He ranked the Blackhawks at No. 11 with a net rating added of plus-one. He is generally pretty sour on the Blackhawks, and that is the case here. He questions the price — in acquisition and contract — they paid for Bowen Byram and notes that “The Blackhawks are going to need a lot of internal improvement to get anywhere next season.” Interestingly, he has Buffalo as the worst summer in the league, giving them a minus-15 rating. They’re going to try to replace Byram and Michael Kesselring with Louis Crevier and Olen Zellweger. Interestingly, while he doubts Byram can step up into a more prominent role, he wrote this about the Sabres’ blue line:As for Byram, a lot will ride on whether Zellweger can step into a top-four role and whether there’s more growth coming for Owen Power. Both seem perfectly plausible.
It looks like Wyatt Kaiser and his fiancée were joined at the Noah Kahan concert at Wrigley Field by Artyom Levshunov. Love to see the young guys on the roster spending time together away from the rink. I know I’ve mentioned this a lot in the past, but the fact that so many of the guys coming up thru the Blackhawks’ pipeline are friends is a good thing. When you see pics like this on their socials over the summer it’s great. We got a first look at Adam Gajan‘s first Blackhawks mask for the coming season. Legit fire.A post shared by DaveArt (@daveart)
Kalen Lumpkins at the Chicago Tribune looked at the Blackhawks’ three options to cover for today’s birthday boy while he’s on the shelf to start the season. Yeah, Patrick Kane’s name comes up. So does a big trade (Jason Robertson?).3 ways the Chicago Blackhawks could address Connor Bedard’s absence — including a Patrick Kane return t.co/SPTWekOMxL
— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) July 17, 2026 The St. Louis Blues avoided arbitration with forward Connor McMichael, who was one of the pieces they received from Washington in the Jordan Kyrou trade. McMichael signed a six-year deal that has a $6.75M AAV. The Montreal Canadiens signed former Blackhawks forward Kirby Dach to a one-year, one-way contract that has a $3.6M cap hit. Finally, Frank Nazar. One of the guys the Blackhawks drafted with a pick acquired in the trade sending Kirby Dach to Montreal. Courtesy the University of Michigan’s hockey socials. Ya love to see it.Who's here for the Frank content? pic.twitter.com/N3cvb9Y6SL
— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) July 16, 2026BLEACHER NATION: Go Ad Free | Subscribe to the BN Newsletter
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