The Chicago Blackhawks may have pulled off a 3-1 win against the defending Stanley Cup champions Thursday night, but Connor Bedard's offensive slump continued.
"I could name 100 things," he said Friday when asked what he could do better. "I don't know, man. It's been frustrating, for sure. I just don't feel like I'm really doing anything. Keep chipping away at it, I guess, and hopefully I'll find my game again."
Bedard hasn't scored a goal in 11 straight games, and he's been held without a point eight times over that span.
"It's been a tough stretch," he said. "You just feel like you don't have it, or whatever. You lose a bit of confidence."
He and new linemates Jason Dickinson and Joey Anderson didn't generate a single shot on goal during Thursday's victory over the Florida Panthers, while Bedard didn't record a shot attempt, according to Natural Stat Trick.
However, Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson saw a lot to like about Bedard's performance.
"He played a good game," he said. "I thought he back-checked really hard to basically even up a 2-on-1 in the second period. ... We didn't get him here to be a defensive specialist, but the responsibility of playing against good lines, it comes first."
Richardson added: "It just didn't bounce for him for the offensive side of things tonight, but he did everything right on the defensive side of the game against one of the top centermen in the league, playing against (Aleksander Barkov's) line."
Bedard paces Chicago with 15 points in 20 games, but he's only scored three times.
Offense has been tough to come by for the Blackhawks in general. They rank 30th in the league in goals per game (2.35), and they've also scored the third-fewest goals at five-on-five (30).
Richardson has resorted to mixing up his lines in an attempt to spark his group. Bedard has been placed with usual bottom-six staples Dickinson and Anderson for the past two games, but he's also skated alongside Nick Foligno, Teuvo Teravainen, Philipp Kurashev, and Ryan Donato this season.
Bedard thinks there's a lot he can learn from Dickinson and Anderson.
"I'm not doing much offensively at all, so I've got to find a different way to be productive," he said. "That was obviously different for me, but it was good to do that."
Chicago is currently second last in the league with a 7-12-1 record.
