Connor Bedard’s dazzling play against Blue Jackets shows growing confidence

Connor Bedard’s most impressive play Sunday actually wasn’t his power-play goal that put the Blackhawks on the board early in the first period.

Instead, it was a play that didn’t make it onto the box score: Deking through three Blue Jackets tightly packed together — Kent Johnson, Zach Werenski and Jake Christiansen — to get a hard shot off on a power play in the second period.

Bedard’s hand-eye coordination and puck control was impeccable, and his vision and creativity was elite. Best of all, though, he looked confident in all of those skills again — just like he did most of last season and unlike most of November.

“He’s obviously got the hands and the vision,” defenseman Alex Vlasic said. “He’s starting to do really well these last couple games.”

The 19-year-old forward — and there can never be enough reminders that he’s still the second-youngest player in the NHL — seems to have conclusively put his drought behind him.

He is now riding a three-game point streak, and he has nine shots on goal and 13 shot attempts in just the last two games. He wasn’t perfect in the Hawks’ 6-3 loss Sunday — he shouldn’t have forced a pass to Philipp Kurashev on a two-on-one rush later in the second, for example — but he looked dangerous.

Bedard even made a crucial block in the first period that might have prevented a Columbus goal. He has quietly been much more involved in that defensive category this season: He’s up to 17 blocked shots now, compared to 27 all of last season.

Soderblom’s chance

Backup goalie Arvid Soderblom will likely start for the Hawks on Monday in Toronto.

It’s an opportunity for Soderblom to continue his strange domination of the Maple Leafs, whom he beat twice last year with 35- and 34-save performances. It’s also an opportunity for him to earn a larger share of the Hawks’ workload moving forward, since Petr Mrazek — who has received 18 starts to Soderblom’s mere six this season — has struggled the last two games.