NHL: Chicago Blackhawks at Minnesota Wild - Source: ImagnConnor Bedard’s NHL season so far summed up with one disappointing faceoff stat

Connor Bedard has not had a great year. He is experiencing the all-too-common sophomore slump, and one faceoff stat might be the best way to sum it up. Bedard entered the league to a lot of fanfare last season, but he has regressed in many ways this year.

That includes faceoffs, which he wasn’t exactly proficient in last year. In 2023-24, the hockey star had a 38.9% faceoff win percentage. That’s not great, but it got even worse in 2024-25.

Bedard has the worst faceoff win percentage of any NHL player with over 100 such attempts at 31.4%. He’s worse than Lukas Reichel, Connor Zary, and Tim Stutzle. Bedard dropped his already meager success rate by almost 7% in just one season.

The Chicago Blackhawks star has struggled in a lot of areas in year two, but faceoff is one particular area that he wasn’t good in to begin with. Now, he’s gotten worse, and it’s a good indicator of how rough his overall season has been.

He has 30 points in 35 games, which isn’t horrendous, but the Blackhawks are off to a dismal start: 12-21-2 and in eighth place in their division. They have the least amount of points and are trending towards the first overall pick in the 2025 NHL Draft.

Interim coach sends message to Connor Bedard and company

Despite some resurgence over the last few games, Connor Bedard has not been able to turn things around for the Chicago Blackhawks. The young player and his teammates got a blunt message from their interim coach as a result.

Connor Bedard and company lost to the Minnesota Wild (Imagn)Connor Bedard and company lost to the Minnesota Wild (Imagn)

After a close loss, Anders Sorensen said via NHL:

“I thought it was little bit same story. Little bit late again. …The biggest thing I think is when the game is on the line, it’s a 2-2 game, right? We got to be willing to go and play offensively at the same time. I thought we sat back a little bit too much there.”

Bedard’s early goal gave the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead over the Minnesota Wild, but they couldn’t keep the momentum going from there and ended up losing by a goal.