Connor Bedard returns to hometown as Blackhawks visit Canucks

Connor Bedard will be in action in his hometown when the Chicago Blackhawks visit the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday.

The second-year player will draw plenty of attention as many of his family and friends are expected to be in attendance, judging from all the requests for tickets.

"Nothing crazy, but I'll be paying to play for a day," he said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Bedard, the 2023 first overall draft pick and last season's Calder Trophy winner as rookie of the year, missed his team's lone visit to Vancouver last season due to a broken jaw.

A return to his hometown might spark the 19-year-old forward. In 17 games this season, Bedard has netted only three goals and 13 points. He has just one assist in his past four games and hasn't scored a goal in the past eight games.

"Lately, I've just been less of an impact and not really making a difference," he said this week, according to The Hockey News. "Hopefully, I can contribute more."

The Blackhawks are coming off a 3-1 loss to the Seattle Kraken on Thursday and have managed only one victory in their past four games.

Chicago was outplayed through the first two periods but stayed within striking distance until a late empty-net goal sealed its fate. Yet nobody was kidding themselves.

"It's disappointing," Chicago forward Nick Foligno said. "We talked about it. They start fast, too, and we just didn't have an answer for that, and that's disappointing.

"I guess you could say our legs were there in the third. We were hanging around, hanging around, the game was almost waiting for us to take it over, and we just didn't."

The Canucks are back in action after yet another lackluster performance at home. After their 5-2 loss to the New York Islanders on Thursday, Vancouver has managed only two wins at home (2-3-3) yet has won six of seven road games.

The Canucks scored first against the Islanders but surrendered five consecutive goals, which left Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet apologizing to the fans.

"We're not playing good enough at home. It's on me," Tocchet said. "Guys played light (Thursday). I thought we were ready to go. We weren't. It's on me."

Whether the coach or the players deserve the most blame is a debate, but something must change soon.

Even with Dakota Joshua returning to the lineup after being diagnosed with testicular cancer in the summer and 2022 first-round draft pick Jonathan Lekkerimaki opening the scoring, his first NHL goal in his second career game, the Canucks faltered and have now lost two of three games to kick off a six-game homestand.

"We're going to lose games. We can't win all 82, so it's normal to lose games," defenseman Vincent Desharnais said. "But it's not normal to lose games like we're doing right now. We're letting our goalies down. We're not playing to our standards right now. We have a big stretch of games coming, and we've got to figure it out."

--Field Level Media