Connor Bedard’s first NHL hat trick powers Blackhawks past Senators

Connor Bedard finally recorded his first career hat trick Tuesday, powering the Blackhawks to a wild 7-3 win over the Senators.

The star forward ripped three beautiful shots past Senators goalie Linus Ullmark, against whom he coincidentally also scored his first NHL goal two years ago. He added one beautiful assist to Ryan Donato to complete a four-point performance.

“It’s nice to see Connor have an offensive night like tonight to get rewarded for the good two-way play that he’s had,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “What I don’t want is [for him to] not get rewarded and then, all of a sudden, start cheating for your offense. That’ll equal not winning. He has done it the right way.”

Bedard’s second-period goal was one of the most impressive of his career, perhaps second only to his lacrosse goal in St. Louis last year. He skated coast-to-coast through the Senators’ defense before dragging the puck around defenseman Artem Zub’s stick to create a shooting angle.

Bedard then picked the corner off a faceoff early in the third period to complete the hat trick in his 160th NHL game. It was a big tally for the Hawks at the time, too, because they had raced out to a 4-0 lead before allowing three straight Senators goals that briefly tightened things up.

“[Against] Anaheim, I don’t know how many shots I had — probably 10 or something — and none go in,” Bedard said. “And then today, it’s almost every one. That’s how hockey is: sometimes it’s going in, sometimes it’s not. For me, I try to stick with it, keep shooting and not get too high [or] too low.”

Andre Burakovsky, Nick Foligno, Frank Nazar and Louis Crevier each tallied multiple points, as well. The Hawks are now a surprising 5-3-2 this season as they prepare to embark on a season-long six-game road trip.

Dach’s pursuit

Young Hawks forward Colton Dach talks often about his pursuit of consistency. This season, he has gotten closer than ever before to achieving it.

He’s not quite there yet. After an excellent training camp and start to the season, he did trail off for a few games. But the encouraging thing is he identified that and addressed it. Over the last three games, Dach has re-established his A-game. He chased down and buried a rebound for his first goal of the season in the first period Tuesday.

“My game is [about] being physical, being engaged,” Dach said recently. “Maybe it’s not a huge hit, but it’s [about] getting into guys, winning battles, being heavy on sticks and puck battles. That’s where my game needs to be every night. That’s the non-negotiable I need.”

He hasn’t lacked hits, either. He ranked seventh in the NHL with 38 of them entering Tuesday.

Toews next

Jonathan Toews will face the Hawks for the first time in his career — a situation most people, including him, never imagined would occur until recently — on Thursday in Winnipeg. His against-the-odds comeback has gone well so far, as he has tallied five points in nine games for the Jets (entering Tuesday).

Foligno said he has kept in touch with the Hawks captain who preceded him.

“You never really doubt Jonathan, because he’s got a little screw loose in a lot of ways,” Foligno said. “That’s what makes him who he is. [I] admire it so much. Because if told he’s not going to do it, he’s going to do it.”

Low attendance

The Hawks’ attendance has been worse than expected so far, although perhaps not quite selling out their home opener — they drew 19,334, short of the United Center’s official hockey capacity of 19,717 — was a presage.

The announced crowd of 15,100 on Tuesday was their smallest since March 28, 2023, more than two years ago. They’ve drawn fewer than 16,700 fans in four of their last five games after falling below that mark just four times all of last season. Their average attendance was 18,585 per game last season; it’s 16,806 this season.

It’s disappointing, but not worth panicking about. October and November are typically the hardest months to sell tickets; crowds usually surge around the holidays and stay respectable in January and beyond.