(670 The Score) New Blackhawks head coach Jeff Blashill knows one of the biggest tasks awaiting him is fostering the development of young star Connor Bedard and helping mold him into an elite all-around player.
In an interview on the Mully & Haugh Show on Wednesday morning, Blashill had high praise for the 19-year-old Bedard, who had 67 points (23 goals, 44 assists) in 82 games this past season.
“Obviously, Connor is a big piece of this group and a big piece of this team,” Blashill said on the Mully & Haugh on Wednesday morning, a day after he was formally introduced as the Blackhawks’ new head coach. “There’s a lot of other really good young pieces too that probably don’t get talked about as much. But Connor is a big piece of it for sure. Certainly, he’s an attraction when a coach is looking at the job. The thing I like the most of what I hear about Connor is that he loves hockey and he wants to be great. And when you couple that with his talents and his abilities that he’s earned over time, that tells me that he’s going to get there. He probably took some criticism, a little bit unfairly in my opinion. If you look at just numbers alone, they stack up pretty comparable to a lot of the great, great players in this league over their first couple of years.
“He’s in a good spot to continue to grow as a player. The biggest thing that we’ll do for all our young players is make sure as they’re growing, they’re growing into not just guys who can score and produce points but guys who are going to win championships. So that will be our focus for all our players, including Connor."
The 51-year-old Blashill was hired by the Blackhawks after he spent the past three seasons as an assistant coach for the Tampa Bay Lightning. He served as the Red Wings’ head coach from 2015-’22, guiding Detroit during a time it went through a rebuild. He had a 204-261-72 mark in leading the Red Wings.
The Blackhawks are coming off another ugly season, as they had the second-worst record in the NHL.
“I understand what living through a rebuild is,” Blashill said. “There’s pain involved with that. And so I get the idea that we’d love to expedite the timeline as much as we can – without sacrificing long-term success. And so I just think the most important thing is staying focused. I use the word ‘process.’ But staying focused on the process and making sure we’re doing things the right way with the belief that that is going to lead to success. How quickly, none of us know. But that just depends on how quickly we can get to work, how quickly we can establish the standards and how quickly the players are living up to those standards.”