Column: Chicago Blackhawks star Connor Bedard taking his share of hits from TV analysts — but is it fair game?

Chicago Tribune

07-02-2025

For those Chicago Blackhawks fans who aren't triggered and tortured by the mere memory of the Winter Classic, you might recall the 'showdown' Connor Bedard and Paul Bissonnette filmed together for TNT to tease the outdoor game on New Year's Eve at Wrigley Field.
Bedard and Bissonnette engaged in skating, shooting and faceoff competitions — all manufactured for our entertainment — and finally settled in Bedard's favor through a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Ironically, it was called 'Biz vs. Bedard.'
Fast forward a little more than a month later, and 'Biz vs. Bedard' has incorporated another contest of wills: hatchet throwing.
During the Chicago Blackhawks' 4-3 overtime loss to the Edmonton Oilers that aired nationally Wednesday night on TNT, analyst Bissonnette picked apart Bedard's game and likened it to 'pond hockey.'
It was reminiscent of ESPN commentator Mark Messier's jabs during the Hawks' 5-1 loss to the Florida Panthers on Saturday when the Hockey Hall of Famer said: 'There's no quicker way to destroy the morale of the team than having players who don't earn their ice time.'
After Hawks practice Thursday, Bedard responded.
'I'm not watching broadcasts or anything, I'm playing hockey,' the second-year center said. 'Their job is to say what they see. I couldn't really care less, to be honest, what people on the outside think of me.
'But of course I'm not going to be butthurt if someone says I make a bad play. I don't care. It's their job to say what they feel. I'm not going to take anything personally.'
It's not a coincidence that Bedard looks like a target.
It was two games airing on national TV featuring the Stanley Cup champions and runners-up, respectively, against a Hawks team that had no business being anywhere near such prime-time matchups.
The only rooting interest in a Hawks storyline for any viewer outside of the Chicago market is Bedard, and after enjoying a honeymoon period as a rookie last season, the daggers are out.
During ESPN's intermission show, Messier saw how Panthers forward Sam Reinhart ripped through Bedard's stick defense to score a goal and mused, 'This is a choice and this is a consequence for a young player there. He's right on Sam Reinhart. This is a 50-50 battle. He's soft on his stick, and — I'm sorry, the excuses for a young player are over now. He has to be better than that. Sure enough, they get a power play and who goes right onto the ice? Bedard.
'There's no quicker way to destroy the morale of a team than to have players that don't earn their ice time. When a player makes a conscious choice to be soft on the puck in that situation right there, there has to be consequences. And if there's not, it will destroy the morale of the team.'
During Wednesday's 'NHL on TNT' studio show, Bissonnette ramped up the rhetoric even more as the broadcast played a montage of Bedard's bloopers and Bissonnette delineated his mistakes.
Shrugging his shoulders — i.e., poor body language — when he didn't get a puck back
Turning the puck over on a blind pass
Committing a hooking penalty
Getting poke-checked after passing up a shot two straight times
Trying to dangle between defenders instead of chipping and chasing
A soft-pass turnover
'Sometimes I see him continue to try things that aren't going to work at the NHL level, like soft plays that are just going to get picked off and go back the other way,' Bissonnette said. 'As much good as he does sometimes he doesn't do great things.
'There's so many details to his game that he's lacking right now. Yes, he might put up 30-35 goals a season and get his 50-55 assists by playing power play and getting all these minutes. But they're going to continue to lose hockey games if that's how he's playing.
'That is pond hockey.'
The cliche goes that the NHL, like any professional sports league, is a business. But this is the entertainment side of the business.
This is Show 'Biz.'
And it's nothing new, Hawks forward Pat Maroon pointed out.
'He's a first-rounder. He's the first pick overall,' Maroon said when asked whether Bedard is a target for scrutiny. 'Connor McDavid has a target. (Nathan) MacKinnon has a target. (Sidney) Crosby has a target. All these guys that played the first two years in the league on national television, they had a target on them.
'That's just the natural (way) of the business. The spotlight's on those guys.'
How Bedard receives it and perhaps uses it will determine whether the criticism becomes constructive or destructive.
Maroon added that the Hawks brought in veterans such as himself, Nick Foligno and others to help guide the younger players.
'Connor is 19 years old. He's still learning,' Maroon said. 'He's still very young, and you know, he's going to continue to grow as a player every single game.'
But you need to win to learn winning habits. Those lessons are hard to come by for a second-to-last-place team.
'You've got to remember, too, like we're in a tough spot,' Maroon said. 'We're not playing meaningful games right now, down the stretch. We're not in a playoff spot. We're not playing to get into a playoff spot. …
'When you're playing those meaningful games down the stretch, you know what you need to do with the puck. You know how to set the next line up. You know not to make that play or not to force a play. … We shot ourselves in the foot earlier in the year (by losing), now it's costing us. If we're playing those meaningful games and we're trying to crawl our way into an eight spot, it's probably a different story, right?'
Maroon didn't specifically object to anything Messier or Bissonnette said (for my part Bissonnette made some salient points, but I think Messier went over the top), but he laid the burden of 'playing the right way' on veterans and young players alike.
'That's not just Connor Bedard, that's everyone in this room,' Maroon said.
Hawks interim coach Anders Sorensen has worked with Bedard — outside of a training camp — only since early December, but he acknowledged, 'Puck management is a big part of the game, but we'll keep those conversations between me and him, what we talk about.
'He's aware, he's a smart player, he knows if he makes a mistake. So I think that's where it's at.'
Being a No. 1 pick carries expectations, but a handful of phenoms have been subject to almost godlike treatment since their early teens. Some in Edmonton believe 'McJesus' walks on frozen water.
If those are the heights, imagine the depths of condemnation such a player faces if for the sin of failing to measure up.
'For a 19-year-old player that's under the microscope as much as he is, it's actually remarkable how he handles everything,' Sorensen said. 'To be that mature and how to handle things, he came to practice today, first one on the ice, ready to go again. I give him a lot of credit for that.
'There's a lot of pressure on him in general but I think he puts more pressure on himself than anybody. So I think he's handling it terrifically.'
So far, Bedard stubbornly has refused to get to ride the peaks and valleys of a fickle hockey world. His judgment is rendered in cold, hard wins or losses; good shifts or bad shifts.
So he's letting this latest barrage from TV's bully pulpit roll off his back and looking internally.
'Hey, man, I know if I mess up a play,' Bedard said. 'It's their job to point that out or say how they feel about something. If I make a mistake, I know.
'I don't need to watch a TNT broadcast to figure out if I made a mistake. I'm going to know.'