Chicago Blackhawks
Six Chicago Blackhawks to Watch in 2026-27
The Blackhawks open the season on Sept. 29 against Vegas without their best player. That single fact reshapes what this season is about — and puts a lot of weight on players who weren’t supposed to carry it yet.
Connor Bedard, C
The season’s central question, and he won’t answer it until November.
Bedard put up 30 goals and 75 points in 69 games last year on a team that finished 31st in the league. Then he injured his left shoulder at a July practice in Vancouver, had surgery, and is expected back somewhere in the early-to-mid November range.
Chicago plays roughly twenty games before he returns. Where the standings sit on the day he steps back on the ice determines whether the rest of the season is a push or another development year. That’s a lot of consequence riding on a stretch he has no ability to influence.
Patrick Kane, RW
The homecoming is the headline. The job is more practical than that.
Kane returned on a two-year, $16 million deal to the franchise he played for from 2007 to 2023, where he won Cups in 2010, 2013 and 2015. He is not the player he was and he doesn’t need to be. What he is: the roster’s most reliable source of offense while Bedard is out, and the most plausible candidate to make Bedard better when he’s back.
Bedard has been looking for a high-skill linemate since the day he was drafted. Kane isn’t a long-term solution to that — a couple of seasons, realistically — but he’s an immediate one.
Bowen Byram, D
The biggest bet the front office made all summer.
Chicago sent the No. 4 overall pick, the No. 45 pick and defenseman Louis Crevier to Buffalo for Byram and forward Jordan Greenway, then signed Byram to a six-year, $75 million extension. Trading a top-five selection for a defenseman invites second-guessing, and it has gotten plenty.
The logic holds up regardless. The Blackhawks had a very young blue line with nobody on it who could credibly be called a No. 1 defenseman. Now they do, and Alex Vlasic and the rest of the group get to develop behind someone instead of in place of someone. Whether Byram plays like a $12.5 million defenseman is the question the trade will ultimately be judged on.
Roman Kantserov, RW
The most intriguing unknown on the roster.
A second-round pick (No. 44) in 2023, Kantserov signed in May and arrives from the KHL with expectations that he slots straight into the top six — possibly the top line. The hope inside the organization was that he’d be the elite complement Bedard has been missing. Bedard’s injury delays finding out.
Rookie seasons for KHL arrivals are notoriously hard to project. Watch the first month.
Spencer Knight, G
Quietly the reason last season wasn’t worse.
Knight posted a .902 save percentage in his first full season in Chicago and finished top-10 among NHL goaltenders in wins above replacement — on a team that surrendered a great deal of shot volume. That is a better performance than the raw number suggests.
The interesting part is what happens now. With Byram stabilizing the defense, Knight should face better-quality chances against. If the save percentage doesn’t improve alongside the team in front of him, that changes how the organization thinks about the position.
Nick Lardis, LW
The player most likely to force a promotion.
Lardis scored 10 goals and 15 points in 41 games as a rookie while spending most of the year buried in the bottom six, and got a look alongside Bedard down the stretch. A 2023 third-round pick with that finishing rate shouldn’t be playing fourth-line minutes.
With Anton Frondell and Kantserov arriving full-time, there’s a natural top-six trio waiting to be assembled. Lardis is the one who has already shown he can score at this level.
Also worth tracking
Frank Nazar and Anton Frondell, C — before the draft, general manager Kyle Davidson said the plan was to open the season with Bedard, Nazar and Frondell centering the top three lines. The injury changes the sequencing, not the intent. Both get more responsibility, sooner.
Teuvo Teravainen, LW — coming off arguably the worst season of his NHL career at 31. Chicago needs a bounce-back from a player who is defensively sound and smart enough to complement younger linemates.
Chicago Sports Wire covers Blackhawks news, injuries and game night coverage all season. See the Blackhawks schedule for puck drop times and broadcast info.