Jeff Blashill makes his feeling known about Connor Bedard being left of Team Canada roster

The Chicago Blackhawks saw their star center, Connor Bedard, did not make the Team Canada roster for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Team Canada was announced on Wednesday afternoon and there were a few notable omissions from the roster, but Bedard’s name was one of the more significant. While their roster is stacked, and this is the first time in more than a decade that NHL players will be competing, it was intriguing to see his name left off the final cuts. Let’s take a look at how the Blackhawks are seeing this for their young star player.

Blackhawks coach makes his feelings known about Connor Bedard being off the Team Canada roster

On Thursday afternoon, ahead of the team’s home game against the Dallas Stars, Blackhawks coach Jeff Blashill would give his thoughts about Bedard being left off Team Canada for the 2026 Winter Olympics.

“I have a ton of respect for how hard these decisions are. Honestly, Canada, the US, Sweden, you have a lot of really good players that you’re going to ultimately leave off these teams. The one thing I would say is, I don’t think the rest of the league knows how good of a two-way winning hockey player Connor has become. That’s the one thing, and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s based on previous years. But I don’t think they have a full understanding of how good a winning hockey player he is today.”

Blashill would continue to discuss how the defensive metrics that decision-makers look at do not tell the whole story of how well Bedard plays.

“I’ve read some things about defensive metrics and things like that. I would tell you, I’ve studied those things tons [and] I’ve never seen defensive metrics that I trust to say to me whether or not a guy’s a good defensive player. I don’t think they judge what they’re supposed to judge yet. I don’t think we’re there yet.  We’re all working to try to get there, we’re not there. The metric that I trust is your impact on winning. The reason why I know he’s a big-time winning hockey player [is] when he was in our lineup, we were one point out of the wild card and since then we’re 1-6-1. That’s the impact he’s had… You don’t have that impact if you’re just a point-getter. You only have that impact if you’re a true two-way kind of winning player, and that’s what he’s become.”

When asked about if the upper-body injury Bedard suffered kept him off Team Canada, their general manager, Doug Armstrong, would say that it did not play a role. There is still a chance he will make the team as an injury replacement, if they need one, but it is clear that Chicago believes Bedard should have gotten the call to be on the roster.

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