Bedard leads Blackhawks' comeback to overcome sloppy day against Ducks

The Chicago Blackhawks snapped their season-long five-game losing streak with a massive 5-3 comeback victory over the Anaheim Ducks. Things could not have started worse for the Blackhawks as they fell behind 3-0, including giving up a pair of goals just 47 seconds into the game.

The comeback started with a late first-period power-play goal by Tyler Bertuzzi. They followed that up with goals from Ryan Greene and Colton Dach in the middle frame. Connor Bedard capped off his four-point night with two goals in the third period. He has some words for the Ducks on the way out, too!

This win feels great because not only does it get the Blackhawks back into a playoff spot, but it gets their mojo back ahead of a four-game road trip. The resilience we praised this team for was back, and this was a character-building win.

“I thought our guys did a pretty good job of not trying to make it up in one shift,” head coach Jeff Blashill said. “You've got to try to stay with it. You just have to keep playing good hockey. At that point, there’s tons of time left. Obviously, a big goal on the power play at the end of the first. Those are big things. You've got to fight to try to score the next goal. And we did that, and we did that, and we did that.”

Connor Bedard Owns the Ducks

With his two goals and two assists today, Bedard now has 16 points in eight career games against the Ducks. He now has a four-point game to go along with a five-point effort he had during his rookie season.

After picking up assists on the first two Blackhawks goals, he took advantage of a Ducks turnover to beat Ville Husso one-on-one and give his team its first lead of the day. Husso had just entered the game in relief of injured starter Petr Mrazek.

Later in the frame, he and Mason McTavish got into it at the faceoff circle, leading him to talk some trash towards the Ducks bench after scoring an empty-net goal.

They had more words for each other after the final horn. These two teams will wrap up their season series next Sunday in Anaheim, in what could be a spicy affair.

Bedard and McTavish are good friends, being teammates and roommates for Team Canada at the World Junior Championships.

“We’re pretty close,” Bedard said. “But that’s who he is. I think he’s someone who always wants to compete. I was roommates with him and was teammates with him for a couple of years, and everything we do, he’s trying to make it a competition. He’s such a great player, such a good competitor. He’s a fun guy to play against. Fun to go at it with him. I’ll probably go say hi to him right now. But it’s fun to play guys like that.”

There is only one player in the league who has more points than Bedard’s 37, and that’s Nathan MacKinnon. Chicago’s young superstar is becoming that generational player he was hyped to be before he was drafted. As we enter December, he has outscored Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Kirill Kaprizov, Nikita Kucherov, and any other star you can mention.

“I just don’t know any great players who aren’t hyper-competitive,” Blashill said of Bedard. “They want to win their shifts. They want to win the game. They want to win at everything they do. He’s certainly got that trait.”

Ryan Greene Continues to Make the Most of His Opportunities

One of the popular topics in recent postgame show chats and on social media is Ryan Greene playing on the top line. Granted, he is not your prototypical first-line winger, but he has made the most of his playing time with Connor Bedard and Andre Burakovsky. This has been the most successful combination for Bedard all season long.

Among lines that have played at least five games together, this trio has the second-best Corsi for percentage (CF%) at 56.11. They have produced the most 5-on-5 goals (9) and scoring chances (66), and the second-most high-danger scoring chances (19).

Individually, Greene is seventh on the team with 31 scoring chances and tied for fifth with 15 high-danger scoring chances. He entered tonight’s game with the same number of high-danger scoring chances as Frank Nazar, who broke the tie tonight. His biggest knock has been his lack of finish. He’s failed to capitalize on some of those high-danger chances, but he’s creating them. That’s why he’s had an extended run on Bedard’s line.

“He plays with really good players, and that’s part of it,” Blashill said. “He’s smart enough and has enough skill to play with those guys. You have to be smart enough to find those openings and to know where to be at the right time. And then you have to have enough skill to make some of those plays to the other two guys. He’s done both of those things. He’s been a pretty good fit. He’s a cerebral player. He’s learned to move his feet and go win puck battles. When he’s done that, he’s been a pretty good player.

Finishing wasn’t a problem early in the second period, as Greene buried this amazing no-look pass from Bedard for his fourth goal of the season, and second in as many games.

Greene might have done his best work on the penalty kill. He was so calm and kept things simple during his 3:05 of shorthanded time. He made a couple of clears while under pressure and even created a shorthanded scoring chance. This was his best NHL game, no doubt.

Nuggets & Tidbits

• When a team struggles, they tend to try to be perfect. Instead of playing a simple game, they make too many passes looking for a play instead of just getting. We saw a perfect example of this in the second period. With the Blackhawks down 3-1, Teuvo Teravainen elected to pass backwards instead of attacking the net, then Andre Burakovsky doubled down on the bad by trying to get the puck back to Teravainen. You’re down two goals against a goaltender with an .881 SV%, shoot it!

• Thankfully, Teravainen made up for it later by setting up Dach’s game-tying goal late in the middle frame. I’m not sure if the pass was for Dach or Ryan Donato, but the result was all that mattered. This was Dach’s first career power-play goal.

• Spencer Knight deserves a ton of credit for today's victory. Things got off to a dreadful start with two goals allowed in 47 seconds. However, the Blackhawks' top netminder never got rattled. He remained his usual even-keeled self and came up with some big saves to keep his team alive. They rewarded him with the five-goal outburst.

• Bedard talked a little about that with Darren Pang after the game. These are the types of wins that go a long way for a young and growing team, especially on the heels of five straight losses. Hopefully, this game has the opposite effect that the loss to the Seattle Kraken had and leads to an extended winning streak.

• One last fun stat from today, per the NHL: the Blackhawks became the fifth team in NHL history to win a game after falling behind 2-0 in the opening minute of the game.