SAN JOSE, Calif. — It started with a simple question to Connor Bedard and what seemed like an innocuous comment after the Chicago Blackhawks lost 4-2 to the Dallas Stars on Saturday.
Can you take solace in hanging for three periods with a Stanley Cup contender?
“No,” Bedard said after the game. “We’re not just going to be happy that we stayed in a game. We’re all NHL players. That’s not the goal, you know? It’s frustrating.
“Losing is not fun, so we’ve obviously got to figure it out.”
Those comments became fodder for internet and podcast speculation.
Is Bedard unhappy in Chicago? Will that supposed unrest spur the Hawks front office to swing for a big acquisition?
Sportsnet.ca journalist Elliotte Friedman said on his “32 Thoughts” podcast, “I listen to Bedard and I understand there’s frustration. I don’t think there’s any reason to panic at this point in time, it’s way too early for that. But if you’re internal in Chicago, you’re seeing that, like, OK, we know how much this guy cares, we know he wants to win, and you have to ask, ‘What’s our timeline here?’ We don’t want to be stupid, but how long do we really have?
Is Bedard not-so-secretly seething? Not quite.
“When you lose, you’re not going to be happy, so I feel like that’s kind of common sense on any team that didn’t get after the hottest start,” Bedard told the Tribune on Thursday before the Hawks lost to the San Jose Sharks 3-2. “We’re competitive people, we’re frustrated when we lose.
“But in the end, we all are here to win and to make us better, make everyone better. So I’m excited to keep doing that with these guys.”
These guys?
Does Bedard believe that this group as assembled has the Hawks (3-7-1) headed in the right direction?
“Yeah, I think we feel that we’ve been in every game,” he said. “Obviously you’ve got to win. It’s a results league, so it doesn’t matter if you lose 3-2 or 10-1.
“But in the end, we feel like we could’ve won every single game we played. And if we can figure out how to close those out, then we’re going to be a tough team to beat.”
Also, if Bedard was at his wit’s end, it probably would have been after a particularly ugly 6-3 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Oct. 22.
He’s been doing a self-temperature check.
“It’s something I’ve been working on a lot, every year, trying to get a little better at flushing things,” he said after the Canucks game. “But probably that night, I’m not too happy for the rest of the night or whatever. Then in the morning you try to forget about it.”
On Thursday, he said he feels “maybe a little” more comfortable speaking up in the locker room than he did as a rookie last season.
“I’m not the loudest guy ever, and I’m still 19,” Bedard said. “We’ve got a lot of guys that have been really for 10, 15 years, so, yeah, I’m still not super loud. But I feel comfortable saying something if I want or if I feel like it’s necessary.”
