The Athletic mentioned 11 players who signed contracts which took at least 13 percent of their team's cap space at the time of their signings, guessing Bedard will join that group

"We have star players, too, that don’t seem to be protected as well as some of the other teams’ stars," Blackhawks captain Foligno said.

At 4:52 of the second period, Mikko Rantanen scored his first goal as a member of the Hurricanes. One minute later (5:59), Jaccob Slavin made it 3-1. For a team as offensively challenged as the Blackhawks, that felt like a hill too steep to climb.