Bowen Byram is now seeing a medical specialist whom the Blackhawks hope can help get him over the “last hurdle” in his recovery from an undisclosed upper-body injury, coach Jeff Blashill said Monday.
It’s the latest twist in a confusing story that seemed innocuous at first and has now stretched for three weeks. Monday marked Byram’s eighth consecutive game missed and ninth total out of 15 this season.
In the meantime, the Hawks have forged on — not very successfully — without their biggest summer trade acquisition, whom they believed would add much-needed star power to their young defensive corps.
Byram’s poor performance in his first six appearances cast some doubt on that proclamation, but he was also adjusting to new systems and teammates, getting little support and learning how to parent newborn twin daughters at home.
When he returns, it’s certainly possible he’ll transform the Hawks for the better, both by bumping every other defenseman into more appropriate roles for their skill sets and by using his quickness and puck-moving skills to help the team transition from defense to offense. The Hawks haven’t been shy about verbally attributing some of their struggles to his absence.
But none of this can be assessed until Byram, 25, actually does return, and it’s unclear when that will be.
He last played Oct. 13 against the Penguins, during which there were no visible signs of injury. He led the team with 24:37 of ice time and was on the ice to congratulate Spencer Knight after the Hawks’ victory.
When he surprisingly wasn’t present at morning skate Oct. 15, Blashill announced Byram was considered “day-to-day” with an upper-body injury. He has maintained that day-to-day designation ever since.
Blashill has clarified it isn’t a concussion, which many fans initially speculated about because Byram was hit in the head with a puck during the Penguins game and dealt with serious concussion-related issues earlier in his NHL career with the Avalanche. But Blashill hasn’t specified the exact injury.
Byram resumed skating individually on Oct. 23 and resumed practicing with the team — while wearing a gray non-contact jersey — the following day.
Starting last Wednesday (Oct. 28), Byram traveled with the Hawks on their road trip to Detroit and Boston, but he ended up not playing in either game. He was seen in the press box in Boston.
Byram wasn’t on the ice at all for morning skate Monday in Chicago, after which Blashill said Byram hasn’t suffered a setback but isn’t yet medically cleared to play, contradicting a report by Frank Seravalli on Chicago Sports Network’s pregame show Saturday.
Blashill didn’t answer a question about whether Byram will travel Tuesday for the start of the Hawks’ three-game road trip against the Panthers, Lightning and Hurricanes.
During Byram’s absence, the Hawks have equally distributed their hardest minutes among four defensemen: Alex Vlasic, Artyom Levshunov, Wyatt Kaiser and Ian Cole. They’ve each averaged between 21:30 and 19:30 per game.
Sam Rinzel has been sheltered as much as possible, and Ethan Del Mastro and Kevin Korchinski have rotated in and out of the lineup. Blashill described the group’s play as “up and down.”
“Certain guys have definitely grown,” Blashill said. “Vlasic had a tough one in Utah [Oct. 1], and other than that, he’s been really good on a consistent basis.
“You pretty much know what you’re getting every night with Cole. That’s a good feeling as a coach — to know when he goes out, you know what you’re getting. The last four or five games, Kaiser has been really good. Certainly [he] still isn’t without a mistake, but that’s probably nobody.”
Levshunov, meanwhile, has been arguably the brightest spot of the unit, restoring faith he could potentially develop into the elite top-pairing defenseman the Hawks drafted him to be. But even he is handicapped without Byram as a possible partner.