Dietz: Canada made a mistake not picking Hawks’ Bedard for the Olympics

Oops. Ugh. Dang.

One of those thoughts had to be running through the head of anyone associated with the Canadian Olympic men's hockey team if they happened to catch either of the Blackhawks' games last week.

I'm going with: “Oops.” As in: Oops, perhaps we made a colossal error by not bringing Connor Bedard with us to Milan.

Look, hindsight is always 20-20. But figuring the difference between winning gold or silver would likely come down to the slimmest of margins, it made a lot of sense to select Bedard.

One shot could have made all the difference. One shot and we might be talking Canadian gold instead of the first U.S. hockey gold in 46 years.

Bedard's omission likely came down to two factors:

•The shoulder injury he suffered on December 12.

• The fact that he may have been in a bottom-six forward role, meaning he would have been tasked with more defensive responsibilities.

No doubt it was a tough call as Team Canada was stacked from top to bottom. But 10 years from now I'm guessing history will not look kindly upon the decision.

Bedard was back to his early-season form during losses at Nashville on Thursday and Colorado on Saturday, taking 8 of the Hawks' 38 combined shots on goal and scoring 2 of their 3 goals.

The Avalanche's TV announcers heaped praise upon Bedard after he beat goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood at 6:31 of the first period. After gathering a long pass from Tyler Bertuzzi, Bedard took a nanosecond to settle the puck before firing it at the net.

“That was Sakic-esque,” raved color commentator Mark Rycroft. “There's only a handful of guys who can do that.”

It wasn't the shot's speed that impressed Rycroft. Rather, it was how quickly the puck came off Bedard's stick — which is something former Avs forward Joe Sakic was known for over a 20-year career that included a whopping 625 goals.

“That is all-world,” Rycroft said.

Bedard's 25 goals in 47 games are a career high. If he hadn't missed 13 games we could easily be talking about a 45-50 goal season.

Meanwhile, most of his teammates are struggling mightily. Frank Nazar can't finish. Andre Burakovsky is a disaster. Ryan Donato, Oliver Moore and Ryan Greene have all disappeared.

“We do have to find a way to produce more offense, more chances,” coach Jeff Blashill told reporters in Denver. “Some of it comes down to execution, some of it comes down to (the fact) that we've got offensive guys that can produce, but they're probably not feeling it right now. So we've got to get their confidence going. You've got to ultimately earn your confidence so they're going to have to grind through it here.”

The Hawks have 36 goals over the last 17 games, a stretch in which they are 5-10-2. Take out the win over Carolina and they're averaging 1.88 goals in the other 16 contests.

Good luck winning with numbers like that.

“It can't just be on Connor,” captain Nick Foligno said Saturday. “He's doing his job. He's getting scoring chances, he's making plays — he could have had five (against the Avs).

“It's on the rest of us to pick it up and find a way to help him out — give him some run support.”

That support finally came during a 4-0 victory Sunday at Utah when Teuvo Teravainen scored twice and Foligno and Landon Slaggert also scored. Of course one outburst doesn't fix weeks and weeks of ick.

But maybe it starts a spark that ignites a nice run. To find out, tune in Tuesday when the Hawks see Jonathan Toews and the Winnipeg Jets for the final time this season.

Trade winds blowing

This time next week we figure to be talking about a different Hawks lineup. The trade deadline is Friday, which means some combination of Nick Foligno, Jason Dickinson, Ilya Mikheyev and Connor Murphy figure to be moved. Foligno addressed the subject with reporters last week.

“(We talked about) the state of where we’re at and what my thoughts were, what his thoughts were,” Foligno said, referring to GM Kyle Davidson. “There’s just a lot of unknowns, right? When you’re in this situation where you’re not in the playoffs, there’s decisions that the organization has to make, and therefore there’s decisions you have to make.”

John Dietz, a sports writer at the Daily Herald from 1998-2024, covered the Blackhawks from 2014-24. You can reach him at jdietz6917@hotmail.com.