The Rebuild Is Real. So Is the Injury List.

Chicago spent the summer doing everything right — acquiring Bowen Byram, locking up Bedard on a five-year extension, landing Patrick Kane on a pitch from a 20-year-old. The front office earned its offseason. The injury report has been less cooperative.

As of early August, Bedard, Artyom Levshunov, Matt Grzelcyk, and Ryan Ellis are all sidelined. Bedard's shoulder surgery was always part of the plan — the extension got signed anyway, the timeline is known. The others are harder to absorb. Levshunov averaged nearly 20 minutes a night last season and was one of the few defensemen who looked like a real piece going forward. Losing him before training camp even opens puts pressure on a blue line that was already the reason Chicago gave up the No. 4 pick to get Byram in the first place.

That leaves Tyler Bertuzzi, Andre Burakovsky, and Teuvo Teravainen to carry the early offensive load — a workable group, not a dangerous one. Kane and Byram provide veteran ballast, which matters. But the version of this team that makes sense only works when Bedard is in the lineup, and right now nobody knows exactly when that is.

I noted last week that staying healthy was the condition everything else depended on. That condition is already being tested before a puck drops.