Chicago Blackhawks
Chicago Blackhawks 2026-27 Season Preview: Kane Is Back, Bedard Isn’t — Yet
Season opener: Tuesday, Sept. 29 vs. Vegas Golden Knights, United Center
The Blackhawks did the thing rebuilding teams eventually have to do. They stopped waiting.
Chicago spent the summer adding a legitimate top-pairing defenseman, a Hall of Fame winger and enough bottom-six stability to stop bleeding goals in the third period. Then, in early July, Connor Bedard hurt his left shoulder at a practice in Vancouver, had surgery, and turned the first six weeks of the season into a very different kind of test.
That is the 2026-27 season in one paragraph: a team that finally built something, asked to prove it can function without its best player until November.
Where they’re coming from
The 2025-26 Blackhawks finished 29-39-14 for 72 points — 31st in the league. It was an improvement on the previous year’s 61 points, and it was not the improvement the organization had in mind.
Two players carried most of the load. Bedard put up 30 goals and 75 points in 69 games. Goaltender Spencer Knight posted a .902 save percentage in his first full season in Chicago and finished top-10 among goaltenders in wins above replacement. Almost everything else was a work in progress.
General manager Kyle Davidson’s offseason was aimed squarely at the supporting cast.
The Byram trade is the real move
Chicago’s biggest transaction sent the No. 4 overall pick, the No. 45 pick and defenseman Louis Crevier to Buffalo for Bowen Byram and forward Jordan Greenway. Byram then signed a six-year, $75 million extension.
Whatever you think of the price — and plenty of people have opinions about trading a top-five pick — the logic is clear. The Blackhawks had a very young, very unsettled blue line and no one on it who could reasonably be called a No. 1 defenseman. Now they do. Alex Vlasic and the rest of the group get to develop behind someone rather than in place of someone.
Patrick Kane, again
Kane signed a two-year, $16 million deal to return to the franchise he played for from 2007 to 2023, where he won Stanley Cups in 2010, 2013 and 2015.
The sentimental read writes itself. The practical read is more interesting: with Bedard out until roughly early-to-mid November, Kane is the player most capable of keeping the offense functional in the interim, and he’s the one most likely to make Bedard better when he returns. Bedard has been searching for a high-skill running mate since the day he was drafted. Kane is not a long-term answer to that — he’ll be here a couple of seasons — but he is an answer for right now.
The other candidate for that role is Roman Kantserov, the 2023 second-round pick who signed in May and arrives from the KHL. Expectations are that he slots into the top six immediately, possibly the top line.
The kids are the actual story
Davidson said before the draft that the plan was to open the season with Bedard, Frank Nazar and Anton Frondell centering the top three lines. The shoulder injury complicates the sequencing, not the intent.
Frondell and Kantserov arrive full-time. Nick Lardis, who scored 10 goals in 41 games as a rookie while buried in the bottom six, has a case for a permanent top-six role. Oliver Moore and Ryan Greene are the next wave behind them. Veterans Tyler Bertuzzi, Teuvo Teravainen and Ryan Donato are still on the roster, and the Blackhawks badly need Teravainen to bounce back from the worst season of his NHL career.
This is the year the prospect pipeline stops being a talking point and starts being a lineup.
What to watch
- The first six weeks. Chicago plays roughly twenty games before Bedard is expected back. Where they sit when he returns determines whether this season is a playoff push or another development year.
- Knight’s workload. A .902 save percentage on a team that gave up as much as Chicago did is impressive. A better defense in front of him should improve the number — if it doesn’t, that’s a problem.
- One more top-six forward. It’s the roster’s clearest remaining gap, and it’s why Chicago has deadline cap space.
- An 84-game schedule. The NHL’s expanded regular season means a shortened training camp, an earlier start and two more games of wear on a young roster.
Nobody is predicting a Cup. But for the first time in the rebuild, “moving out of the basement” is the floor rather than the ceiling.
Chicago Sports Wire covers Blackhawks news, schedules and game night coverage all season. See the Blackhawks schedule for puck drop times and broadcast info.