The Chicago Blackhawks placed star rookie Connor Bedard on injured reserve with a broken jaw Saturday, and coach Luke Richardson said there was no timetable for his return.
“It’s just so fresh today this morning to get our people to look at him and make decisions going forward,” Richardson said in comments posted on NHL.com. “So we just have to do what we’ve been doing, scrambling our lineup together and mixing up the chemistry. As soon as we seem to find a little something, someone goes down.”
Bedard, the 18-year-old Canadian who was the top pick in the NHL draft last June, was hurt in the first period of the Blackhawks’ loss to New Jersey on Friday when he took a hit from Devils defenseman Brendan Smith.
Bedard crossed into the offensive zone and was checked by Smith in the slot, exiting the ice holding his hand to his mouth.
“I was more afraid of a concussion, that’s what I was thinking,” teammate Jason Dickinson said. “I was like, ‘Ah, he’s holding his face. He must have gotten rattled, like, in his head.'”
Dickinson said after practice Saturday that Bedard “was just really upset” on Friday night, and he’d spent time speaking to his young teammate and trying to help him stay “positive with where he’s at.”
Bedard leads all NHL scoring with 33 points — 15 goals and 18 assists — in 39 games.
On Thursday he was named to the 2024 All-Star game.
The North Vancouver native, who was part of Canada’s World Junior Championship winning team, arrived in the NHL to great fanfare and got his first point in his debut in a 4-2 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins and his idol, Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, on October 10.
He scored his first goal a day later.
