The Blackhawks Bet $75 Million on a Player Who Can't Suit Up Yet—and They're Right to Do It

The five-year, $75 million extension Connor Bedard signed on July 18 is the most important transaction in Chicago's rebuild, and also its most uncomfortable one. Bedard is currently rehabbing from left shoulder surgery, expected to miss the start of 2026–27, and the roster around him is hemorrhaging bodies—Artyom Levshunov, Andrew Mangiapane, Matt Grzelcyk, and Ryan Ellis all landed on injured reserve in mid-July. Signing your franchise centerpiece to a landmark deal while he's in a sling and your depth chart is on fire is not a conventional move. It is, however, the correct one. Here is the narrow path to why, and here is exactly what closes it off.

Start with what Bedard actually did last season in 38 games: 20 goals, 28 assists, 48 points, at 1.26 points per game. He led the Blackhawks in scoring during a 29–53 campaign in which the defense allowed 4.2 goals per game over the final 10 games alone—a collapse so complete it was essentially a controlled demolition. The team won twice in those last 10 games. Bedard's plus-4 rating stood as a small island of structural sanity in a season defined by freefall. The extension, which makes him the NHL's third-highest paid player by average annual value, is not a reward for last year. It is a statement about what the franchise believes he becomes when the structure around him is no longer broken.

That structure is the actual argument. The front office didn't just sign Bedard—they acquired Bowen Byram from Buffalo on June 24 and immediately locked him into a six-year, $75 million extension of his own. Byram is the defensive anchor this rebuild has been missing. The Blackhawks gave up the No. 4 overall pick to get him, which is a significant price, but the logic is coherent: you don't need another high pick if the one you already have is Bedard, and you desperately need someone who can prevent the back end from hemorrhaging 4.2 goals a night. The plan, stated plainly, is Bedard as the offensive engine, Byram as the defensive spine, and the young players around them—Frank Nazar at 26 points in 37 games, Oliver Moore developing, Louis Crevier logging minutes on the blue line—as the connective tissue that hardens over the next two or three seasons.

The problem is the bridge. The early months of 2026–27 will be played without Bedard, and the offense that has to hold things together in his absence is thin. Tyler Bertuzzi produced 24 goals and 40 points last season and has been called a signing that's paying off—he is the closest thing to a reliable veteran scorer on the roster right now. Andre Burakovsky contributed 29 points, Teuvo Teravainen 24. These are competent NHL players. None of them is a first-line center, and none of them changes the calculus of a game the way Bedard does at 1.26 points per game. Jordan Greenway, acquired in the Byram trade, is projected for fourth-line work if he's healthy—which is a qualifier that applies to almost everyone in this organization right now. The 84-game schedule has already been flagged as unfavorable for Chicago. They are going to take damage in October and November, and the question is whether that damage is survivable or whether it compounds into a second consecutive season of structural collapse.

Here is what breaks the path, named precisely: if Levshunov's injury extends deep into the season, Chicago loses its most productive defenseman from last year—22 points in 48 games at 19.1 minutes a night—at the exact moment Byram is still acclimating to a new system. That is two top-pairing defensemen unavailable simultaneously, which is how you end up allowing 4.2 goals a night again. The secondary injury crisis also strips the forward group of depth before a single puck drops. And if Bedard's shoulder rehab runs long—if he misses not just the opener but a meaningful chunk of the first half—the Blackhawks are essentially running a developmental season with veteran role players as the